Hatch-a-long, set March 1, hatch March 21/22

[HomesteadNowhere]

My first real hatching! Setting eggs from my mixed flock. New Hampshire roo and Bielefelder roo in with them all.
Hens: 10 freedom ranger hens (my experiments), 8 buff brahma, 1 new Hampshire, 1 white Wyandotte, and 1 buff orpington.

Any barred chicks will have been sired by the Bielefelder, any not barred will have been sired by the new Hampshire.

I don't have anyone separated so I'm not sure who is laying how many. It's gonna be a total grab bag what hatches. Brahma laid eggs should have feather-legged chicks I think?

Anyhow.. Anyone wanting to join me is very welcome! I'll update when eggs are set!

 

[The-White-Elephant]

My first real hatching! Setting eggs from my mixed flock. New Hampshire roo and Bielefelder roo in with them all.
Hens: 10 freedom ranger hens (my experiments), 8 buff brahma, 1 new Hampshire, 1 white Wyandotte, and 1 buff orpington.

Any barred chicks will have been sired by the Bielefelder, any not barred will have been sired by the new Hampshire.

I don't have anyone separated so I'm not sure who is laying how many. It's gonna be a total grab bag what hatches. Brahma laid eggs should have feather-legged chicks I think?

Anyhow.. Anyone wanting to join me is very welcome! I'll update when eggs are set!

Following!!!

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Ok I went through the eggs I have, pulled out the odd shaped ones and anything under 55 grams. I wrote their weight on each egg as I put on the X and O for hand turning.
12 eggs are 55-59 grams.
34 eggs are 60-70 grams.

I'll add eggs from whatever is laid tomorrow. There is some space so I might add some Wednesday... Gotta start full right! Ha!

All eggs have been lightly washed. All except those from today and yesterday were in the fridge. I know it's not ideal but oh well.
I'm running a humidifier in the room and it's about 30% so I'm going to do dry hatch.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

49 eggs set! 3:20pm
There is a bit of space and I might add eggs the next two days..

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

7 eggs today added in. Total 56 eggs. I'm not going to add any more. I could squeeze a few more in but I'm not, and I don't want hatching to drag on.

When I was running the incubator to test it had to set at 104 to keep it at 100. Now full of eggs and with the eggs up to temp I've been bumping it down. Now set at 101.5 is holding at 100.

I'm aiming to candle at day 7 (3/8) and day 18 (3/19). I do have some hens separated, escape artists, so their eggs wouldn't be fertile but they lay smaller eggs so I think not setting eggs under 55g weeded them out. But may have some duds if it didn't. 2 roos and 21 hens, the rest should be fertile. I had been checking as I used eggs and pretty much all looked to have bullseye. So we'll see!

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

Yesterday things were off for a while. I don't know what changed. I thought my thermometer might have gone on the fritz but it seems to be working fine. The incubator was at 96* for a while and then 94*. I messed with it alot and now it's holding at 99*. There is a fan so hopefully that's fine. It wouldn't hold at 100 without creeping to 101 and with the incubator having warm and cool areas I was worried some eggs were getting too hot.
Next time I turn the eggs I'm going to lay out a blanket and try to rearrange for the inner eggs to move out and the outer eggs move in. So eggs won't always be in a more cool/warm spot.

 

[Owllea]

I set some barnyard mix eggs in the incubator on March 1st too! I look forward to hearing how it goes for you. Good luck with the swinging temps.

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

I've been watching the temp closely. Have to baby it a bit but it's working well enough for what it is.

I just candled. I think 22 blanks, maybe 5 questionable. Leaves me at around 30 viable. There was a couple speckled ones and each of those was absolutely blank, darn.
It's not terrible though. Only my second hatch and first with a real incubator, even if it's a cheap one. And I don't have a ton of brooder space til they can go outside. So it works out ok.

I also expected duds since they were washed eggs.. and in the fridge.. and I hadn't been dating the cartons, so date laid is up to at least two weeks.

But.. of the 7 added late, 3 are blanks and one questionable. So it could be the roos also. I'm suspecting they are starting to be more annoying to each other and may be harassing the other when they see mounted a hen. That will be fixed next time, I'm working out a second pen to separate them.

 

[Owllea]

Candled the ten eggs I had set. Found nine bobbing little embryos and one dud yolk. So far, so good. I did find the secondary temp and humidity gauge looked to be growing a little something in the window, so I took it out…hope it doesn’t spread to the eggs. A bit nervous now.
I had read a lot on this website and others about how to collect and set eggs. Method of collection that has worked for me for the last two hatches in my “little giant” styrofoam incubator: putting fresh eggs in an egg carton in the basement (constant 60-63 degrees) and set the egg carton edge up on a few magazines for a slight tilt, and shifted that at least twice a day until ready to set in incubator.
It’s still air, hand rotating at least three times a day about 1/4 to 1/2 turn. I think I had 99.7 to 100.5 for temps both previous times and most hatched on day 20. Did one dry and one wet and honestly couldn’t tell the difference. Just made sure it stayed humid at hatch. Had about 60-70% successful hatch of those that were alive on day 7.
I haven’t made an excel spreadsheet yet but I’ve got a pretty big folder of observations and data. I did weigh eggs this time and last time but can’t remember what I’m looking for. A certain percentage of weight loss to show proper humidity? Anywho, I’ll figure that out as we go. Just more data!

 

[HomesteadNowhere]

I am going to wait til day 10 before tossing eggs next time. I boiled the duds to feed back to the chickens. Some looked a little off and may have been viable, I'm not for sure.
Glad I marked some questionable and left them in. I'll check them again later.

Yes weight loss is a way to show they've lost the right amount of weight in moisture. I wrote weights on mine, since I was already weighing them. If the air cell looks good I won't weigh them again.