Well, I'm sad, happy, disappointed & excited all rolled into one!

[tntstanifer]

I'm not so sure this is for me. I hatched 3 out of 16 eggs. I know it's not a total failure, but I thought I would do better. I have 3 of the cutest, tiniest baby Serama........but, I just threw 7 perfectly formed babies in the trash. I tried so hard and I know I did my best. Anyone else feel like this their first hatch? <sigh> I have eggs coming from 2 different people, plus some I've gathered from my hens, and I'm going to try again. But if this is really how it works......someone can have my bator.

 

[silkiechicken]

Sounds like something was a bit off during incubation, maybe some tweaking and you'll get higher hatch rates. Congats on the three though!

 

[tntstanifer]

Thanks! I had 2 different hygrometers, 3 different thermometers (one inside a wiggler) and I kept a close eye on all that. The 3 that did hatch, 2 of them were sorta slimy & didn't fluff up well when dry. I'm wondering if I had the humidity up too high the last few days. I even had a humidifier going in the room. I'm sure you're right, and something just needs "tweaking". I'm just not sure I'm up for throwing away the casualties until I get it right.

 

[silkiechicken]

If you had slimy chicks, I'd say drop the humidity during the initial incubation time. Keep an eye on the air cell growth and that should give an idea of if you need to up or lower the humidity. I personally don't have a hydrometer and just go by aproximate air cell sizes.

 

[92caddy]

Seramas are not an easy thing to hatch, even with my own eggs, I dont have alot of good hatches and with shipped eggs its even worse. Your pick of egg to hatch for your first time was not a good one, I mean no offence by that, try again and if ya want lots of chickies, try some mutt eggs, it seems like if its a mutt, it will hatch, but if its pure and you really want it to hatch, you wont get a good hatch, thats my luck, Good luck to ya and sorry you didnt have a good hatch.................

 

[tntstanifer]

Quote:
That's ok, no offense taken. I found out Serama were not that easy to hatch AFTER I had set them

I guess I should have researched it more. At least I have my 3 little chirpers! Half of my next batch will be mutts, so we'll see.

 

[kstaven]

Considering you hatched out shipped serama eggs I would have to say you did very well! For most people that have lots of eggs shipped to them you will find they average 50% hatch rates.

 

[Mom 2em All]

I started out with seven shipped serama eggs, and after I set mine-I also read that they were difficult to hatch out. I have three left...which technically I have two, and one that I think is no longer any good, but I refuse to take it out because I am in denial, and maybe it really is good. One of them was fertile and growing great and I dropped it.

How many days did it take for them to hatch? At what day did you stop turning them? I am on Day 15.

 

[ginasmarans]

Congrats on your babies. Seramas are difficult to hatch,so you did good,girl. I have not been having good hatches this year,either,even from my own eggs. I think it is just the whacky temps we've been having this year. Don't ya just love linving here? How's the girls and babies doing?

 

[tntstanifer]

Quote:
I stopped turning them late evening on day 16 (just because I wasn't going to have time to change everything out the next morning) and I sat them in an egg carton(pointy side down). I woke up on the 19th day and there were 2 pips. I took my son to school and went grocery shopping and around 10am that morning I got home to find another pip. The first two hatched around 1-3pm and the last hatched around 8:30 that night. Once they started zipping around, it didn't take more than 15 minutes for them to pop out of there. Good luck with yours!