MAY 2016 "Land of the Free Because of the brave!" Hatch-a-Long Hosted by, Mike & Sally

[BrieCheese23]

2 silkies, 4 Cornish bantams and one half out (zipped, just hasn't kicked out and is just laying in his shell resting). Out of the remaining 11, almost all eggs are pipped externally and the rest are pipped internally. Go figure my styrobator strikes again with a delayed hatch. The first batch (technically second) of quails in done 26 out of 75...kind of abysmal. But round two (er...three) is incubating as we speak and I personally saw the parents and they're practically dinner plate sized, so excited for that. Welsummers went into lockdown today, but if the first chicks are any indication this may be a long wait. I will leave the four of them in there for a few days.

 

[sasafras4u2]

Ok I have a question. If in lockdown and your not supposed to open the incubator.... how do you know the chick has internally pipped without candling? If I hear cheeping I know but I never knew which egg it was.

 

[Hirad]

I have at least 2 internal pips in the mixed breed eggs!
They're a little ahead of schedule since they're not due till Sunday.
Also a few of the air cells seem to have gotten larger in some of the pure breed eggs, so here's to hoping!

 

[junebuggena]

I lockdown early, on day 16 or 17, because my flock's eggs always hatch a bit early (no, not my incubator's issue, they hatch the same under broodies too). I candle at lockdown for one final check. Usually there is one or two that are working on the internal pip, pushing against the air cell membrane. After 48 hours from the first hatch, I candle the eggs that still haven't pipped. Sometimes they will be internally pipped, sometime they are clearly DIS.
As long as there are no pips, it's safe to open the incubator for short periods of time.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

My update:

Louise hatched her 7 eggs earlier this week. Four were hatched when I went out in the morning and the last three were out by the afternoon.

I found out that I couldn't add her to the others, even thought they were just a few days apart. The Silky moms would have killed the chicks and beat Louise up...lol.
I have a 4 foot rabbit cage top that fits in the brooder, so I put Louise in there with her chicks and the Silkies are on the outside.

Although none of their reactions are a surprise...I still had hope that I could work magic or something.

(Delusional...check!)

Two guinea eggs quit on the bottom broody. In her defense she does have 2-3 hens who lay eggs in her nest everyday. So now I'm trying to decide if I should put the viable guinea eggs back in the bator and just give them both eggs due on the 16th. They're both thin and then I'm done with broody hens taking up nest space. Yes, just decided...that's what I'm gonna do.

I'm due to hatch on the 16th from the incubator. I've had a few hens that laid eggs in the broody nests that were set on for more than 12+ hours when we've been gone...so I added those eggs to the incubator as they occurred.

One egg got missed and looked to be about 4 or so days under a broody when I found it. The egg has 12?? written on the end of it, so I was pleasantly surprised when I heard peeping out of the egg last night.

I've never hatched a single chick by itself...so I set the egg in one of my containers (no holes for air flow), I wet a portion of paper towel and hung it over the side of the container and I set a folded sandwich baggy on top to hold humidity in...but left about a 1/4 inch along two sides to let fresh air in. Humidity in the incubator is approx 44% (calibrated properly finally...lol)
The chick was already out this morning with zero issues. Super happy it worked!!

Here's pics of what I did in case any one needs this info.
The paper towel on the side was also dampened and the bag just placed loose on top. Super simple!



The chick came out of a smooth blue/green egg, very high chance it's from a pullet that was hatched last year from my original pair .
These pullets are backcrossed to their father to see if he has the blue egg gene or just the hen.
I was expecting chipmunk coloring.
Everyone's colored with green legs...and I got this yellow chick with light legs???

Exciting, surprising and totally unexpected!

The egg

Original hen that was paired with rooster below. She's the grandmother.

The rooster (they're molting, no tail) with the hen above makes the hen that's drinking water.

And the hen drinking water X the above rooster made THIS chick with NO colors...

Who just wanted to cuddle and sleep.

Awwwww. I gave him my toque to cuddle with. (Hurry other little chicks and hatch!!!)
And I just realized I haven't turned the eggs at all today. (crap!) Catch you guys later!!!

 

[chicken hawk 33]

We have two internal pips

 

[BrieCheese23]

No. No, no, no, no, no. Come back on power! Woke up to the last sputter of my fish tank filter and then silence and darkness and now the power is off with two incubators full of eggs D':

Edit: Got the generator going and everything is okay. Now the wait for the power to turn back on.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

We have two internal pips

No. No, no, no, no, no. Come back on power! Woke up to the last sputter of my fish tank filter and then silence and darkness and now the power is off with two incubators full of eggs D':

Edit: Got the generator going and everything is okay. Now the wait for the power to turn back on.

Oh no! Has it come back on??

 

[DwayneNLiz]

Yeay!
You been drinking? The comb is powdery looking.

ummm is this a trick question?

2 silkies, 4 Cornish bantams and one half out (zipped, just hasn't kicked out and is just laying in his shell resting). Out of the remaining 11, almost all eggs are pipped externally and the rest are pipped internally. Go figure my styrobator strikes again with a delayed hatch. The first batch (technically second) of quails in done 26 out of 75...kind of abysmal. But round two (er...three) is incubating as we speak and I personally saw the parents and they're practically dinner plate sized, so excited for that. Welsummers went into lockdown today, but if the first chicks are any indication this may be a long wait. I will leave the four of them in there for a few days.

good luck!!

I have at least 2 internal pips in the mixed breed eggs!
They're a little ahead of schedule since they're not due till Sunday.
Also a few of the air cells seem to have gotten larger in some of the pure breed eggs, so here's to hoping!

Woohoooo!

No. No, no, no, no, no. Come back on power! Woke up to the last sputter of my fish tank filter and then silence and darkness and now the power is off with two incubators full of eggs D':

Edit: Got the generator going and everything is okay. Now the wait for the power to turn back on.

thank goodness for generators!

 

[BullChick]

LOL. Nope!