Who's Incubating in Nov. 2011 ?

[draye]

MIne hatched yesterday, 32 out 50.

 

[StevenW.]

It feels like its taking FOREVER for the month to end!
I want it to be december already so I can start counting down to the single days my eggies will hatch!

 

[dwegg]

One more week till lockdown for me...

 

[draye]

I'm gonna do a New Years Day Hatch. Will be setting eggs from my one and only Lavender Ameraucana hen and some Dark Cornish (Hatchery Strock), but are really fairly good meaty chickens, just buthered some that were aroubnd 18 to 19 weekd old and they dressed oput pretty goo, but didn't weigh them.

 

[jeslewmazer]

group picture, and are doing fine...but still got a few in the incubator not hatched yet.

 

[baustin]

They are so cute. I am into day 9 so I have a ways to go yet.

 

[yellowrose]

My Shetland Geese are laying which really surprised me! I colleced and am incubating 6 eggs. The first was found Nov 9th... then the next on Nov 14th then about 2 days apart there after. The will hatch out staggered... but I can move them to a different incubators when lock down comes time. I added duck eggs and chicken eggs to match hatching dates so they will have other birds for company until they are all hatched. ( I am assuming that they will hatch).

 

[jeslewmazer]

Mine are almost done....just two left.
Hatch On!!

 

[EM Squared Farms]

Quote:
I was talking to my friend from Argentina about what 41 degrees celcius would be, and she said HOT !

I hear from my friends who free range their chickens how adorable it is to see the little baby chickies follow the mother hen around as she teaches them everything about how to be a chicken !

Our first chickie will hopefully be hatching in just a day or two. We finally have 5 eggs in the incubator now. We just started taking the Ameraucana eggs from the one isolated pair. My son is aiming for only 10 chickies, so we'll take about 15 eggs.

Usually you get about 50% cockerels.

You said you're hatching out Silkies, right ? Keep a good eye out on the newly hatched chickies for those special ones with the vaulted skulls. They will have such a nice, fluffy head. We got only about 10% with vaulted skulls (about 3 out of 30 chickies). Or maybe you had those unknown breed, just brown chickens ? (I forget)

We can't wait to hatch out our Black and Splash Silkies. Hopefully they are getting close to laying size soon (it's almost 6 months - they were born April or May).

Well, it will fun to raise chickies with you ! I'm going to start taking chickie videos as soon as our first one hatches (probably will wait until it's a day old chickie so it will be all fluffy and active).

Please keep posting and keep us updated !

 

[EM Squared Farms]

Quote:
Wow !! 93% and 95% respectively. Very cool ! What temp. did you use ? Automatic egg turners (I'm sure). (did I ask you this already ?)

We're planning our chicken barn and was thinking about building a small insulated closet area for the incubator and newly hatched chickies and maybe 1 week old chickies. Somewhere where that area has stable temp. and no fluctuations between day and night, or cold fronts passing through.

With hatch rates like that (much better than the expected 75%), your "secrets" are highly valued !

Do you care to share ?

My temp is set at 99.5 in the incubator with Humidity set at 55%. This is with auto turners for the first 18 Days. On lockdown I move to the hatcher which is also set at 99.5 temp and 65% Humidity until the first pip and then humidity stays around 73%. The lowest I have had is 90% hatch rate with this Natureform Incubator and Dickeys Hatcher.

Ah, interesting.... I think I need 2 incubators to use that automatic egg turner.

I don't think our little starter incubator lets you control the humidity. We keep the troughs at the bottom, always full with water. It needs to be refilled every couple of days. I like to advise my son to fill it when the water is at half level, just to be safe in case he forgets.

Nice to know that you "move" them at day 18.

Maybe someday (actually the neighbor offered us his incubator) we'll get two. Right now it's a discipline exercise for my 12.5 yr. old son to turn the eggs 3x a day. Sometimes I remind him and he's already turned them. This makes me so happy to see him take initiative and show responsibility.

Thanks !