13th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-Along

[Huntergatherr]

Upon candling last night, turns out the ambient room temperature did not maintain during our SE PA cold snap, and we lost all but 2 eggs ....

 

[589205]

Well shoot. I candled eggs last night and pulled out 32 clears/infertile’s so now am down to a dozen that might still hatch. Unfortunately it is still pretty early in the season here for my flock as well.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Same here, I think. That, or the Easter hatchalong really is cursed for me! It always seems like my EHAL hatches go really badly.

I have just 5 eggs still going, one of which is looking iffy but still moving around on its own as of just now. I had 5 more that were developing but have died, and the rest were clears. Just two of the naked neck bantam eggs that I was so excited for are still going, so fingers crossed they both make it to hatch.

 

[589205]

My roo is kind of a big fella with a ton of butt feathering weighing him down too so he has some trouble balancing himself whilst trying to perform his mating rituals
I just trimmed his butt feathers a few days ago and that seems to have helped but now I gotta go trim the girls.

 

[Alaskan]

I only had 5 white eggs in there, spitz..Spitz... and THREE were clear.



But, now I can use the egg turner... so yeah? I have one bantam egg stacked on top I need to hand turn... but the rest fit.

I am going to try to candle the bantam eggs today... blue eggs... so much harder to see inside! Wish me and my old funky bionic eyes luck!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

My roo is kind of a big fella with a ton of butt feathering weighing him down so he has some trouble balancing himself whilst trying to perform his mating rituals
I just trimmed his butt feathers a few days ago and that seems to have helped but now I gotta go trim the girls.

Yeah, the clears from my own flock are Cochin bantam eggs, so I'm thinking they need a butt trimming to get all that fluff out of the way so that my man Gus can actually hit the mark.

 

[589205]

I only had 5 white eggs in there, spitz..Spitz... and THREE were clear.



But, now I can use the egg turner... so yeah? I have one bantam egg stacked on top I need to hand turn... but the rest fit.

I am going to try to candle the bantam eggs today... blue eggs... so much harder to see inside! Wish me and my old funky bionic eyes luck!

Wishing you good luck!

 

[FoxySonia]

I didn't want any barn yard mixed breed chicks, especially since they wouldn't get vaccinated, but one of my 4 Silkies became broody, a black Silkie I named Coco, and after 2 weeks of daily removing her from the nest boxes I gave up on trying to break her of her desire to become a mama, so I let her sit on 8 mixed eggs. After one week of Coco sitting on the 8 eggs, I went to get the eggs to candle them, during the short time Coco was out of the nest eating outside the coop. I had forgotten to close the top cover of the nest boxes so none of the other pullets could enter Coco's nest and mess with her eggs. Sadly, I found 1 broken egg empty of its content, and noticed 3 eggs had small cracks. I still candled all 7 eggs and unfortunate all of them had cracks. Of the 7, 2 seemed unfertilized and 5 showed a developing chick embryo. I felt so sad those 5 embryos will never get to hatch. I decided to try to save the 4 eggs with the smallest hairline cracks, but I didn't have an unscented candle, only had nail polish, so I used that even though it's so stinky. I set the eggs back on the nest with 4 new eggs, and put Coco over them, but the next day I decided to remove the 4 eggs with the cracks and nail polish, as I didn't think the embryos would develop or hatch without problems. I gave Coco an additional 3 new eggs, adding a nesting pad under the eggs so she doesn't roll them over the bare wood and accidentally crack them. All the nest boxes have wood shavings but the pullets like to scratch most of the shavings out of the boxes, they do the same thing with straw, and they destroy the nesting pads but it takes a while. The new expected hatch date for Coco's new eggs is between April 21-22. My cat Leo's birthday is on April 21.

Yesterday another 2 pullets seem to be broody, a Splash Silkie and a golden neck Old English Game Bantam, so I let them sit on some eggs. If they continue to stay broody and sit on those eggs, they should hatch around April 22-23. So between April 21 and 23 there should be 3 new mamas with newly hatched mixed breed chicks.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

My Call Duck eggs from @WVduckchick are pipping!

Under a broody or in your incubator? How did they do?
Broodys do so much better hatching the little stinkers out.

 

[Skyle]

I candled the eggs today, I'm sure 21 are fertile, I want to wait few more days for one I'm not sure about. The other 11 are not fertile. The little roo did a pretty good work.