Who's Hatching in Dec. 2011 ?

[ozark_chickies]

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Aw, thanks so much for sharing pics of your mommy hen and baby chickies !

I love those kind of pics since we take care of the chickies instead of the mother hens outside. It just didn't work out with the ants around here.

They are very sweet.

Thank you !!

You are very welcome. I am sorry to hear you can't let the hens raise chickies. One of my favorite parts of having chickens is watching momma and baby interact. We also raise some chicks ourselves, and I love doing it, but watching mom do it is priceless.

 

[RBahmer]

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I don't know if anyone answered you yet, but this is what we do:

We always write the expected hatch date on the top of the egg with a pencil (21 days after collecting the egg).

Usually you do hear some cheeping going on before they pip (peck at the egg to break through).
If they take longer than 24 hours to finish hatching, usually we help them out. (very few eggs we've had to help out of over 100) Usually the ones that have broken the line half way around (and missed a spot) and are struggling to come out, we help break the crack open. I'm sure they would have eventually gotten out on their own anyways.

A couple have died in the shell, if they have pipped and then dried out before they could get out ?

But no noise is kind of a bad sign. I would give it a few more days and then pitch them (if it's 2 or 3 days past the 21 days since you first put them in the incubator).

You can usually tell the bad ones because they ooze some yucky stuff through the pores.

The newly hatched chickie sleeps a lot on the first day. Once they are mostly dry (not soaking wet), they can come out of the incubator into a bin with a heat lamp.

Hope this helped !

Thank you so much. Today is day 21 and no signs yet. Nothing is oozing out of the eggs and they feel heavy. I will just wait and see what happens.

 

[ApronStrings]

Thanks to an incubator malfunction, I will probably loose my hatch. Too high a temp (104.9) for an unknown period of time while DH and I worked on the new coop! Booooo. Seriously ready to build or buy a cabinet style, thermostat controlled incubator. Hope everyones Christmas hatch does better than mine will.

 

[speckledhen]

We always write the expected hatch date on the top of the egg with a pencil (21 days after collecting the egg).

Don't you mean 21 days after setting the egg? You can collect eggs for two weeks before setting, though it's best not to collect more than a week prior to that. Of course, if it's under a broody hen, that pencil mark will probably rub off.​

 

[EM Squared Farms]

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Don't you mean 21 days after setting the egg? You can collect eggs for two weeks before setting, though it's best not to collect more than a week prior to that. Of course, if it's under a broody hen, that pencil mark will probably rub off.

We put our eggs in the incubator the very day we get them (my son checks daily for eggs just before sunset).

We don't wait to stockpile eggs but rather take advantage of the optimal hatching viability of a fresh egg, rather than decreased viability as it sits around.

To each our own ! (in terms of chickie rearing)

 

[EM Squared Farms]

Ameraucana bantam chickie

Ameraucana bantam chickie

We have 11 chickies that have hatched, 39 eggs are in the incubator (may have some more in a few minutes after my son checks for eggs for the day).

More pics on the website !

Can't wait to see if these are new Ameraucana colors (non-standard colors obviously) that no one has ever seen before ! Someday he'll accomplish his goal of getting a new Ameraucana color accepted into the Standard.

~Lisa

 

[henney penny]

I have two broody silkies one has four eggs under her and the other has six and I have and have 11 in the incubator all silkies.Today I checked under the one with four eggs and she had nine so I brought those five in (glad I marked those four egggs) and candled them and the are growing so they are in the incubator,don`t know how this is going to work as the first ones in the incubator will hatch the 28th and the others probably not for another two weeks after that.I only have on incubator but just could not through away live eggs.I put a screen around her so no others could lay in her box.I was surprised that she let them in to lay she is very nasty when she is broody,her four should hatch Sat. if they don`t then I weill have babies to put under her a little later.Do you think she would accept babies that are a week older than her babies if I put them in at night?

 

[speckledhen]

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Don't you mean 21 days after setting the egg? You can collect eggs for two weeks before setting, though it's best not to collect more than a week prior to that. Of course, if it's under a broody hen, that pencil mark will probably rub off.

We put our eggs in the incubator the very day we get them (my son checks daily for eggs just before sunset).

We don't wait to stockpile eggs but rather take advantage of the optimal hatching viability of a fresh egg, rather than decreased viability as it sits around.

To each our own ! (in terms of chickie rearing)

To clarify this, you put them in daily, as laid, as in daily staggering? They'll be viable for quite some time, trust me. Viability doesn't go down at all, really, until after a week or so. If you stagger that way, how do you up the humidity at Day 18 or do you move them to a hatcher daily as each one gets to Day 18?

A hen, incubating eggs naturally, may lay eggs over a several day period, then she will begin to sit on them to hatch. Those eggs may sit in the nest for a week or more, so you don't have to put them in the incubator immediately upon being laid to have good hatchability.

Of course, you can do it any way you like, but you don't have to do it that way.

 

[EM Squared Farms]

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Today is Dec. 20th...wanted to check back with you to see if you have chickies ?

 

[EM Squared Farms]

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We have a basic styrofoam incubator that has the heating element on the top and a trough at the bottom that is always full of water.

We opted out on the automatic egg turner (we would probably need a second incubator to put it to use). So, my son turns each egg by hand 3x a day, once after each meal and examines each egg (if it's cheeping, piping, etc. - the eggs are sorted by expected hatch date) - teaches very good responsibility for a 12 yr. old.

Yes, they are definitely a staggered hatching. It's a wonderful surprise to get one or two chickies hatching, every so many days.

This is this second round of chickie rearing. Seems to do just fine for us !