whew, I think I earned my crazy chicken lady badge for that drive. CatKai, the chicks are settling in with my 2 weekers and the hens and the roo are chilling next to the brooder - gotta catch my breath before they can go outside. The rooster got out into the garage when I put the water in - good thing all doors were closed - he's fast but I knew the terrain!
All I know is that I don't want to see 69 highway ever again.
If your eggs look pretty close to where they should for the time frame, I'd let it ride. If they look small, I'd go ahead and make sure all the vent holes are open as wide as possible. I generally go by the size of the air cell, and if they are correct or close, I let it go. These seem to really do better if they are lower in humidity.Ok, dunno how reliable this is - generally I just let the broodies do thier thing and what makes it makes it. But these are SPECIAL Chookschicks babies so bought a hatcher and a high powered LED flashlight to try my hand and candling and being able to ID and band who came out of what color egg for AR retentive record keeping.
Broody kicked one frothy non starter out last week. Another hit the dust a couple days ago that looked behind. Candled on day 17 to set in hatcher. One has a bit smaller air cell than I think I should see, but it is a smaller egg too. Another has a decent sized air cell but it's on the side. Out of 18, 16 look like they are good to go! Mind you, this is uncharted territory for me. DARE I HOPE?
Went ahead and set all 18 in cardboard carton with the bottoms cut out. Steady 99 degrees, 70% humidity with eggs in several hours now. Hatcher has a fan. Silkied Hatcher Guru's....Should I try to drop the humidity a bit or let it ride?
That's right, I totally forgot they were under a momma and that this is just for the hatch. Honestly, then, I would remove ALL of the water and the watch once the first one pips. If it gets out fine, the humidity should go up a lot...over the hatch, the first ones will provide humidity for the next several. I usually don't add any moisture until it seems like it's not hanging on in there, which is generally the second morning of hatching. Then I toss in a loosely wadded warm/wet handful of paper towels on a peanut butter lid of warm water. That will bump it up and give surface area to keep it so. This seems to work very well for me, and we're in roughly the same ambient humidity (I'm in the Kansas City area).
