Wouldn't quite call this a Hatch-a-long as much as a hatch in progress.
Over the winter we were considering trying to hatch out some of our own egg (we had incubated our own birds last time) to expand a little. Sadly New Years day we came home and found our rooster had passed. We tried grabbing what few eggs we had as the birds were still off-lay, but incubating them resulted in no development.
Kicked around a few ideas, decided to get a legit incubator instead of the home made one we used last time (results were fine, but hand turning was a pain and it was a little janky) and ultimately ended up getting some eggs shipped from eBay to try just for fun to hatch.
After reading through the forums, ended up getting a Maticoopx 30 egg incubator (highly recommend, very simple to operate).
Ordered a mix of blue/green eggs from ebay for fun, they weren't terribly expensive at all.
A couple days after ordering the eggs, my daughter comes to me and says a school friend has a rooster that they can't keep and wants to know if we would be interested. So we get the rooster and put him with our girls to see if he can get anything done. Waited 2 days before we started collecting eggs from them, then marked what day each egg was laid on it in pencil (and I have a fairly good idea which hen lays what eggs, most are identifiable just by color.
Ebay eggs arrive, ordered 8, but 9 showed up. None broken, a quick check shows some jiggly air cells. Set them in an egg carton to sit for a day before incubating them.
Set the eggs, we had 9 from ebay, and by this time had collected 18 of our own, so 27 eggs in total. Alot more than we want for birds, but we didn't expect the rooster to have great success that early, and our first try at shipped eggs wasn't expecting great results either (and our first attempt at hatching, 9 out of 11 eggs hatched, and 6 were roosters).
Ultimately, it we get 3-4 hens we would be extatic.
Incubated the ebay eggs in a carton, not turning for about 3 days to try and help the air cells.
After about 10 days pulled the clears - 2 ebay eggs, and 10 of our own eggs were clear (since the eggs were dated, I knew when he got to which girls, and 2 of the girls he never got to at all in that time frame).
Wanted to divide up the eggs so home designed some plastic dividers so I could separate in groups so I know who the mothers of each eggs were.
Day 16, candling again and marking the air cells so I know which way to orient them come lockdown, and the air cells for the shipped eggs were surprisingly normal shaped, since early on they were loose, and the first candling they were saddle shapped, which made me happy... until
I dropped the flash light that I was using to candle, and it's fairly solid metal. Bounces off the candle and smacks into one of the shipped eggs. Checked it over real quick and sure enough it cracked, but the membrane wasn't ruptured. Nothing seeped out. Scoured the forum real quick for a possible remedy. Wax - none on hand. Gel Super glue - all out. Nailpolish, no idea where the girls are hiding it this time. Saw a post about using liquid bandage, and that I had. Put some on real quick, let it dry, and then back into the incubator (though into an egg carton, no more turner for that one).
Eggs were set around noon on Saturday Feb 15, so hatch day should be Saturday March 8th. Well working from home Friday, and daughter getting ready for school calls me over, and we had our first pip. Within an hour we had 3 more.
By the end of my work day we have 9 pips, and 1 starting to zip (and my co-workers telling me they want weekend updates).
15 minutes after work - the first egg is hatched.
Going to bed now, currently 7 eggs have hatched, and 4 more are pipped. 2 eggs I am worried about, they are from one of our girls, and she lays jumbo eggs (the rest of the eggs were between 56-66 grams, hers were both 75).
Have taken lots of pics of the hatch process. Will post some in the morning as well as an update if anymore hatch.
Over the winter we were considering trying to hatch out some of our own egg (we had incubated our own birds last time) to expand a little. Sadly New Years day we came home and found our rooster had passed. We tried grabbing what few eggs we had as the birds were still off-lay, but incubating them resulted in no development.
Kicked around a few ideas, decided to get a legit incubator instead of the home made one we used last time (results were fine, but hand turning was a pain and it was a little janky) and ultimately ended up getting some eggs shipped from eBay to try just for fun to hatch.
After reading through the forums, ended up getting a Maticoopx 30 egg incubator (highly recommend, very simple to operate).
Ordered a mix of blue/green eggs from ebay for fun, they weren't terribly expensive at all.
A couple days after ordering the eggs, my daughter comes to me and says a school friend has a rooster that they can't keep and wants to know if we would be interested. So we get the rooster and put him with our girls to see if he can get anything done. Waited 2 days before we started collecting eggs from them, then marked what day each egg was laid on it in pencil (and I have a fairly good idea which hen lays what eggs, most are identifiable just by color.
Ebay eggs arrive, ordered 8, but 9 showed up. None broken, a quick check shows some jiggly air cells. Set them in an egg carton to sit for a day before incubating them.
Set the eggs, we had 9 from ebay, and by this time had collected 18 of our own, so 27 eggs in total. Alot more than we want for birds, but we didn't expect the rooster to have great success that early, and our first try at shipped eggs wasn't expecting great results either (and our first attempt at hatching, 9 out of 11 eggs hatched, and 6 were roosters).
Ultimately, it we get 3-4 hens we would be extatic.
Incubated the ebay eggs in a carton, not turning for about 3 days to try and help the air cells.
After about 10 days pulled the clears - 2 ebay eggs, and 10 of our own eggs were clear (since the eggs were dated, I knew when he got to which girls, and 2 of the girls he never got to at all in that time frame).
Wanted to divide up the eggs so home designed some plastic dividers so I could separate in groups so I know who the mothers of each eggs were.
Day 16, candling again and marking the air cells so I know which way to orient them come lockdown, and the air cells for the shipped eggs were surprisingly normal shaped, since early on they were loose, and the first candling they were saddle shapped, which made me happy... until
I dropped the flash light that I was using to candle, and it's fairly solid metal. Bounces off the candle and smacks into one of the shipped eggs. Checked it over real quick and sure enough it cracked, but the membrane wasn't ruptured. Nothing seeped out. Scoured the forum real quick for a possible remedy. Wax - none on hand. Gel Super glue - all out. Nailpolish, no idea where the girls are hiding it this time. Saw a post about using liquid bandage, and that I had. Put some on real quick, let it dry, and then back into the incubator (though into an egg carton, no more turner for that one).
Eggs were set around noon on Saturday Feb 15, so hatch day should be Saturday March 8th. Well working from home Friday, and daughter getting ready for school calls me over, and we had our first pip. Within an hour we had 3 more.
By the end of my work day we have 9 pips, and 1 starting to zip (and my co-workers telling me they want weekend updates).
15 minutes after work - the first egg is hatched.
Going to bed now, currently 7 eggs have hatched, and 4 more are pipped. 2 eggs I am worried about, they are from one of our girls, and she lays jumbo eggs (the rest of the eggs were between 56-66 grams, hers were both 75).
Have taken lots of pics of the hatch process. Will post some in the morning as well as an update if anymore hatch.
