your first incubator hatch experience - please share?

[technodoll]

My broody worked soooo hard to hatch eggs for 5 weeks (long story....) and all 4 viable chicks died in the shell about 3 days before hatching.

I'm hoping to have better luck with the bator, I can't handle that much heartache again

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
Try to look at your first couple hatches as a learning experience. With mine, they never even developed. I KNOW they were fertile too.

 

[chickendome]

i have my first clutch in my new incubator right now and I think everything is going great. I am hatching my own Indian runner duck eggs we started on the 19th and it takes about 28.5 days. Have faith, we can do it!

 

[the Pollo Loco]

well i went ahead and tried some TJ eggs and of the doz. i put in only 2 developed but they never pipped, so the hatch was a failure!!! but the experience i got was great!!! I'm on my 4th hatch today and so far i'm having great success, over 75%!!!!!

 

[Jimmiaandboys]

Quote:
Someone on FB today pointed out that a broody can hatch 20 out of 22 in 10 degree weather and us humans have all this technology and fail miserably.

A reliable broody is a blessing, you just never know when ahead of time. I'm on my 2nd attempt, lockdown is Tues. 2/2. I have 13 BCM eggs (too dark to candle-I saw air sacs and felt movement) It's like being pregnant, lots of wait and see. My 1st attempt was a disaster 7 eggs, all developed to some level, 3 fully developed and must have drowned because I heard them "chirping" for a brief time and then nothing. My humidity was too high(?)!!! Make sure your hygrometer is reliable!!!

This time I have the BCM eggs in a Suro-20 (supposed to do most of thinking for me) while I have 6 of our own ee eggs in the LG using dry incubation. Of course, the air is very dry this time of the the year so I'll prob. put a small humidifier near it at lockdown-so maybe it won't be an authentic dry hatch(?)

Regardless, I hope your first time will be more fruitful than mine! Def. look to it as a learning experience and BYC is a great resource to help get the most out of it. Find some hatching buddies, at the very least you'll have a support group but you'll likely have some in the group that can offer lots of experience and know how.

 

[debilorrah]

Keep track of temps and humidity on a calendar too. That way, if the first hatch is a failure, you can look back and see what you did the first time.

 

[Kansaseq]

Of the 8 shipped eggs I set, only 3 hatched. I also set about 4 of my own, and all but 1 hatched. Of course I ended up with 4 roosters and only 2 hens, but it was sooooo fun! I asked for an incubator for my birthday and hatched again last fall. I am currently collecting eggs for my third hatch

 

[77horses]

Hahaha...My first try at incubating eggs?

I haven't been hatching eggs in an incubator as long as I've had chickens...Just today I hatched out 1 chick, which was my third attempt (not including one time with a broody hen) at hatching some eggs.
I've tried other times to hatch an egg, such as putting one of our chicken eggs on the porch in the sun during the summer and hoping it would hatch because of the heat.
The first time I seriously tried to hatch an egg in an incubator, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. All I knew was that an egg needed heat to develop and hatch, and it also needed a safe place to stay. So, I took a small plastic box, a sock, a lamp, and one egg from our own chickens. I had no idea how long it took for an egg to hatch, no idea what temperature it had to be, and I didn't even know that humidity played such a big role in it all. So, I my the egg on top of the sock (which was suppose to be like a small nest), put it inside the "incubator", and turned on the lamp, which was above the incubator to heat it. Later on I found BYC and started asking questions and everything and soon found out more about hatching eggs. Not as much as I know now and should have known, but I felt more experienced. The egg developed up to around day 12, then quit for some reason.

My second attempt was with an actual incubator, only I should have built it more and better than I had. Only had one chick hatch out, whom had been developed under a broody hen up until hatch day, when the hen randomly decided o leave her eggs, or got driven out by another hen.

Finally, my third attempt, I got it right! Today a baby chick hatched out, so it was the first successful hatch (besides with the broody hen) that I at least got some good result back.

 

[panner123]

My first was under the watchful eye of my Grandfather, over sixty years ago. He let me load 2 trays of eggs and told me, any money raised from the hatched chicks was mine. I am not sure of the number of chicks that hatched, but I didn't want to sell any of them. They were my chicks
and I didn't want any money for them. But a day later he gave me 50 sliver dollars. The chicks were gone to the area feed stores, never to be seen again. That day we loaded up the bator again, only this time I tricked him. The day they hatched I went to the bator first and took out 5 of my baby chicks and hid them in my room. He went off to the stores with the chicks and I got my 50 sliver dollars just the same. The next morning I had 5 dead chicks and didn't know why. When we loaded up the bator that day, I told him what I did and gave him back $5. After that he let me keep a couple of chicks from each hatch and still gave me 50 sliver dollars. The price of a chick at that time was 5 cents. Over the years I have learned many new things, but when I have a problem, I think back to those times and what he taught me. Most of the time those things still work. My only regret is letting my Father sell that bator when my Grandfather died. It used coal to heat it until about 1955, then he switched it over to kerosene.

 

[PandoraTaylor]

My first ever Chicken incubation was a total Failure, I heard the chick peeping for 2 days, and then nothing. when I opened it today, it's head was near it's feet, and the membrane seemed to be white and dry against the chick.

so I bought to new Humidity meters, they are currently in a bag with a small container of salt & water to calibrate.
Sunday the 2nd batch of eggs move from incubator to hatcher. So we will see what happens there.

I will be bleaching the hatcher tonight, and airing it tomorrow in prep for Sunday lockdown, Hatch Feb 3. I took a video of the eggtopsy. so I can at least reveiw it later. I have not posted it anywhere, and I did all 4 eggs, it appears that all had some developement, but only 2 would have hatched.....1 died about 2 weeks, it was not pretty, 1 seemed to have been almost ready, and 2 had no yolk left to absorb, but never piped....

So I have been feeding my chickens (1 roo & 34 hens) Flock Raiser pellets, Free choice Oystershell & grit, and 3 cups corn scattered in bedding.....(on cold nights, Just before bed) so I know that calicum is not the problem.

but I had trouble breaking the shell on these eggs, that were incubated.