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

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote: Well, you're doing just fine.

I have some EE eggs that are easy to see and then I have some that have me going...

Some of the later EE chicks lay olive eggs and I'm usually...

and

I gave up candling the OE eggs after 5 days 'cause I can't tell anything anyways...lol.
The stress is making me go gray. (Ok...grayer.)

My chicks are two weeks old today. I had put in what I wanted and then added extra eggs to the incubator to fill in some spaces. These I thought were marans' (to make olive eggers) and I knew some were olive eggs'. (But not sure whose.)
I was cleaning the brooder today and looked carefully at each chick's legs and feet. NO feathering. (My marans crosses all have feathered feet.) so I concluded I had put in welsummer and welsumer cross eggs.
My husband must be catching on because his comment was...Guess that means the incubator will run again.
You think???

...husbands. You gotta love 'em!

Mine's petrified I'm going to set more eggs. (More guinea eggs fell into the incubator today)
I plead insanity.

Day 13.5 candling done. 9 moving and looking good , 2 may have been napping and 7 are nada, quitters and a blood ring. One more week to go! Come on Giant babies!!

Go babies!

I forgot to mention, on 5/19, in my NEW, SECOND Brinsea incubator (chicken math has taken control!), I set 14 more CCL's and 14 BBCM's, all from Chicken Fanatics. (Well, technically I have 25 in that one and put the remaining 2 in the old one) It wouldn't be quite so bad if the rest of the chicks from the last hatch would sell!

Ahhhh...chicken math.

Nice!

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote:

Quote:
I can just see the faces of my family when I read this.
They'd all be like

(No one will eat fertilized eggs here. And they know the difference)

But I wouldn't let 'em anyway even if they did...I'm trying to over populate the world.
Or at least my own coop.

3 chicks out! The black chick was out yesterday (day 21) and the blue and reddish yellow hatched earlier today (still within day 21). Now it's officially day 22 and I have two external pips

And two other eggs doing nothing but they were alive day 19 so I'm crossing my fingers for them.

Day 19 now day 20 starts at 11pm lol no pips yet. Impatiently waiting on peeps! Only have 3 eggs.

New ducklings... Still have a few in the incubator.

Congratulations on the cutie duckies!!

Check out this egg! I thought for a minute it had been dropped and cracked, but it was actually laid like this.

That is beyond cool. Excellent photo! It looks like a gemstone!

My last eggs seem to be showing a swirl type look to them.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Just a quick update:

The last egg I was waiting on died. Opened it the next day.

The keets are pipping today.
Then the one broody hopped off the nest to go eat!

And she was gone for a while.
Meanwhile her eggs are sitting there with big cracks in them out in the open...

I didn't intervene...I want to see if she knows more than I think she does...lol!!
The guinea hen lays every day...and I've got more eggs, I guess.

I have 9 guinea eggs that are good and a few that are questionable.
I have 6 left of the blue egge layer, plus the 2 groups of started eggs...
and the guinea eggs I set today. So far anyway.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

I just got a batch of guinea eggs from a friend into the 'bator, but I'm pretty sure they were refrigerated for a few days. We shall wait and see what develops.

I'm interested to hear as well. I think other have incubated refrigerated eggs and done ok.
I think fridges are about 4 C (39 F)?
The big thing is to let them warm to room temp first and then add them to the incubator.
You don't want condensation on the eggs.

I have a theory that the type of egg carton might make a difference in the loss of humidity in the egg, thus affecting the viability of the egg.
I've kinda noticed that the eggs do better coming out of an enclosed styro egg carton than the open pulp ones.
I want to put both eggs from both types in to do an experiment at some point.

I have about 6-8 dozen eggs stacked in a very old fridge that's not a frost free fridge so it won't be dry like a regular fridge.
It's also not working properly and is keeping them around 54 F.
I haven't set any yet and they're getting old.

 

[Penny Hen]

I have a broody! I'm in the hatch! I put 4 SPBW's. 3 OE's and one SPBW/SBEL under Crystal my Silver OE.

 

[Chaos18]

I have a broody! I'm in the hatch! I put 4 SPBW's. 3 OE's and one SPBW/SBEL under Crystal my Silver OE.

Hopefully she does well for you.

 

[Cynthia12]

Sally, waiting to know if there are any puppies yet. Maybe they came and I missed out, always behind.

 

[firedragon1982]

Mostly finished with my breeding pen today:





Just need the tin for the roof and the paint and we're done! Also got more framing done for the bantam coop:


Just need to do the roof framing and then she'll be ready for plywood siding/roofing. Going to do the roof tomorrow.

 

[Cynthia12]

Mostly finished with my breeding pen today:





Just need the tin for the roof and the paint and we're done! Also got more framing done for the bantam coop:


Just need to do the roof framing and then she'll be ready for plywood siding/roofing. Going to do the roof tomorrow.

Oh....I have to show this to my hubby. Nice!

 

[darkbluespace]

I have 3 more broodies! Two of them just hatched chicks a month ago. One of them went and then the next one laid an egg and stayed put on it today. They have been known to fight over eggs so I gave them each a basket to sit on. Hopefully that will work. They can switch baskets, I just hope they will leave eggs in them. I am putting Silkie eggs under everyone but i ran out because everyone went broody at the same time.

I have a few dozen Serama eggs but I can't decide if I should incubate them.... I am already overrun. Yes? No? Yes? No? I can guess what you all would recommend. Someone actually called me a crazy chicken lady yesterday. Well, I still need more chickens! Maybe just not Seramas.

I have been looking at my old turkey coop which currently just has a few Serama roosters living in it and I am thinking about putting my Silkies in there. It is so big, I am tempted to make it into three or four coops. It has a huge run on one side I could split in half and fencing on the other side could be made into another run. I just have to figure out how to arrange it all!