DECEMBER Hatch-A-Long!😊

[The Kooky Kiwi]

Is it too late for me to join the December hatching party? (sorry I only just discovered the post today). I have some project babies hatching right now - but have also just today set 12 purchased sebright eggs and some more project eggs

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Is it too late for me to join the December hatching party? (sorry I only just discovered the post today). I have some project babies hatching right now - but have also just today set 12 purchased sebright eggs and some more project eggs

Never too late!
Warm welcome to the holiday hatching party! So happy you could join us!
What are you working on (project eggs)?

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

Never too late!
Warm welcome to the holiday hatching party! So happy you could join us!
What are you working on (project eggs)?

Woohoo!
I am on my fourth generation of a sebright/pekin cross project. Sebrights here are declining a bit in quality and fertility so I decided to "import" a little vigor by crossing to another bantam class. I had pekins at the time.. and who doesn't love those little fluff balls.. so my project was "hatched" so to speak LOL.

The sebright eggs I just set are purchased eggs - the intention being that they will be new unrelated birds to breed with next year.

The project eggs I just set and will be setting as often as I get them - are a mixture. I have Rusty (my avatar roo) and his son Junior - currently sharing a harem of ladies including a buff columbian pekin, a silver sebright, and a trio of project hens from last years hatch (two silver incomplete laces and a gold lace).

The babies that come through as predominantly pekin type will be sold as pets/layers. The babies that come through as predominantly sebright type will be grown on and the best of them will become the breeding stock for next year.

 

[The Kooky Kiwi]

Here are my brooder tenants atm - these are a variety of ages ranging from a few hours to a week old And there are three in the hatcher - one pipping as we speak and two due in 2 days.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Woohoo!
I am on my fourth generation of a sebright/pekin cross project. Sebrights here are declining a bit in quality and fertility so I decided to "import" a little vigor by crossing to another bantam class. I had pekins at the time.. and who doesn't love those little fluff balls.. so my project was "hatched" so to speak LOL.

The sebright eggs I just set are purchased eggs - the intention being that they will be new unrelated birds to breed with next year.

The project eggs I just set and will be setting as often as I get them - are a mixture. I have Rusty (my avatar roo) and his son Junior - currently sharing a harem of ladies including a buff columbian pekin, a silver sebright, and a trio of project hens from last years hatch (two silver incomplete laces and a gold lace).

The babies that come through as predominantly pekin type will be sold as pets/layers. The babies that come through as predominantly sebright type will be grown on and the best of them will become the breeding stock for next year.

Sounds like a great plan. Are you seeing the improvements in the sebrights you were hoping for? Anything crossed with Peking (Cochins in the US I believe) are adorable. Often crossed with silkies here.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Here are my brooder tenants atm - these are a variety of ages ranging from a few hours to a week old And there are three in the hatcher - one pipping as we speak and two due in 2 days.View attachment 2440815

They are so cute!

 

[rottngrrl]

Hello. I also just discovered this thread, and thought I would join in as a newbie guaranteed-to-be-hatchaholic because I might need some help here. Long story short, I purchased 2 dozen eggs from a well-known hatchery (that I will not name) and was very disappointed in the overall condition of the majority of the eggs (8 breeds, which they even sent me the some wrong breeds instead of the ones I ordered, but at least they refunded my money for those eggs). I read through all the Sally Sunshine info on incubating, shipped eggs, etc. but was not expecting any of that to happen to these eggs.... Seeing an air sac float around like a level-bubble is very sad, especially for first timer. ANYWAY...

What I was not aware of at the time I had the eggs settled and getting ready to go into the incubator was that hatch day 21 will be on CHRISTMAS DAY! It's just me and my DH, and after the year that we have all had to deal with in one way or many, we could use some fluffy peeping babies hatching on Christmas. We have nowhere else to be but home celebrating and so this should be fun!

Unfortunately, I lost one of the Welsummer eggs (one of the floating level eggs) when a small piece of the shell stuck to the stationary turning rack from some fluid that had leaked out of the egg, and while the membrane wasn't broken, I decided not to take extreme measures which could endanger the rest of the hatch (exploding bacteria bomb?!) and removed the egg. Sadly, after I cracked it open to check, I think it was growing when I compared it to day 2 pics online (but it was still too risky to have left it in the bator). Aside from this one egg, as of today (day 3.5), they are all in the rotating racks in the incubators. Yes...incubator"S". Once I ordered the hatching eggs, I started saving/storing some of the prettier more likely to be fertile eggs from my existing flock (oldest hens and roo 8 months old) to add to the shipped eggs for hatch, but upon receipt of the shipped eggs and that mess, I realized that I was going to need to run 2 separate batches because of the "special needs" the shipped eggs were going to initially need, and then one thing led to another and I have BOTH incubators full of 79 eggs out of fear that I wont have any chicks hatch on/around Christmas!!! Basically, I've lost my damn mind here!!! Maybe there is such a thing as too much isolation after all! It never occurred to me at the time that I could have just eaten the other eggs I had collected up to that point seeing as how I made certain the stayed at 50-55 F and were rotated regularly. In my mind, they were already on the road to hatching. Brain fog??

Thankfully, I now have both Farm Innovator 4250 incubators running smoothly in the 100.0-100.5 F range at 50-55% humidity (multiple digital probes added). Although "Thing 2" (where the shipped eggs are incubating) has been maintaining 55% humidity for the past 24 hours. Looking back at my notes, the humidity started to rise a few hours before I discovered and removed the damaged/leaking Welsummer egg. I wonder why that is still higher a day later? There did not appear to be any leakage into the water well below. Yet another thing to keep an eye on! "Thing 1" has been running like a well oiled machine from the moment I got her temp calibrated correctly (well, adjusted anyway). Overall, this is a way more complicated and involved process than I had previously understood even though I read up on everything before hand. Perhaps I zoned out looking at all the black and white letters while daydreaming of teeny-tiny hatching fluffy peeping babies!

I did a sample egg-check throughout both incubators last night, more than half of the sample eggs did not appear to show any evidence of development (not fertilized was the most likely culprit from my flock, shipping damages more likely with the hatchery eggs); I had sort of expected this all things considered. I think only a handful of the 24 shipped eggs are going to grow, but hopefully I am totally wrong about them and they were saved by SS advice! I did go ahead an locate a local gal who has some BCM hatching eggs from absolutely stunning examples of the breed that I am going to pick up this weekend, so I am more than likely going to have one long staggered hatch probably lasting about a week or so (from Christmas through New Years). Go big or go home, right?? Maybe you should just go ahead and label this post "What NOT to do on your first attempt to incubate/hatch chicken eggs." But who doesn't like a good old fashion challenge?

Hopefully I will be able to learn a lot and pass along some helpful advice to others down the road (beyond "Do NOT try to hatch 80 eggs your first time around!!")

Jeannie

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!
Wow, I think you must be a kindred spirit. I could totally see myself doing what you did!
I ended up with 4 incubators my first go round, though not quite on the scale you are working with.
You have a very ambitious project on your hands.
What are you going to do with all the chicks?
What breeds are you hatching?
Only thing I can add, is to make sure you calibrate your hygrometers.
You did the right thing removing the welsummer egg. Any leaking egg could end up contaminating the other eggs.
Good luck with your hatches, several of us have chicks expected on Christmas Day as well.

 

[the3quail]

Day 11 on quail eggs! Can't see anything in them at this point so gonna stop candling ( which seems good anyway) but what day should I put them on lockdown?

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Day 11 on quail eggs! Can't see anything in them at this point so gonna stop candling ( which seems good anyway) but what day should I put them on lockdown?

Welcome to the hatch-a-long!
I have never hatched quail, but I think quail go into lock down day 14, but I also think it depends on the breed of quail. I will tag @aliciaplus3, who I believe is hatching quail as well!