Now Hatching! Chickam2008 Is A Go! Come See Baby Chicks Hatching!

15 years ago

Yeah, baby! This time we have success! One egg, #9 (I numbered them this time) is already peeping madly and has pipped, 6 hours ahead of the estimated time of 8PM (PST).

After the last crushing disappointment, we didn't want the same thing to happen again. So we waited until one of the little buggers actually started to HATCH before starting this thread. Y'all are guaranteed at least one cute fuzzy chick. :)

Here is the new incubator on the left, the old one on the right. We ran them side-by-side once we got a new thermometer for the old one.

{{gwi:36723}}

Here are the eggs when I placed them three weeks ago, ready to go!

{{gwi:36724}}

Ignore the old thermometer, I deep-sixed it before closing up the incubators. The 42 numbered eggs for Chickam are in the new incubator on the left, and 18 non-numbered test eggs are in the old incubator on the right, just for us so we can see if it works.

We'll keep the cam on the pipping #9 egg for now, and we'll move it around as needed once more pipping and hatching begins.

Once the hatch is done, we'll move the cam to the brooder box, so you can enjoy the frenzied running about that IS baby chicks in action:

{{gwi:40503}}

Hilarity in the form of little fuzzballs. As a bonus, we'll toss 'em some live mealworms or crickets from time to time, so you can place your bets for Chicken Football (fun for you, not so much so for the bug; but oh, well).

We've changed Chickam2008 to the Yahoo site, the new URL is below.

http://live.yahoo.com/chickam2008

Unfortunately, the pip on #9 is facing AWAY from the camera, and we cannot open the incubator to move the egg (it's a non-no during the beginning of the hatch), so you'll have to trust us on this. Also, sorry--no sound, we tested it and the ambient room noise (and cawing from Nadine the crow and peeping from Jake the sparrow) overpowers any peeps from the incubators. But once we place the cam in the brooder box with the dry chicks, we'll try it then.

So place your bets, there are 42 eggs total in the Chickam incubator! Or, if you like to root for the underdog, go for the eggs in the old incubator. And remember--the first egg to pip isn't always the first one to hatch! :)

Velvet ~:>

Comments (19)

sullicorbitt
15 years ago
How very cool Velvet, leave it to you to set up such an amazing site! I will be checking in to see how things are progressing. Hatching chicks never gets old! it's so much fun.

I hope your special girls eggs hatch, I know how nice it is to have the offspring of very beloved birds. I'm hoping for many pullets for you!

Thanks for sharing!
Sheila
johanna_h
15 years ago
Yeah! There's a chick in there!!! I am so excited for you. If my hens don't get it together to sit a nest soon, I might have to invest in an incubator and give that a go.

Do you collect and refrigerate the eggs until you have enough, or keep them in a bowl on the kitchen counter, or what?

--Johanna
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Sorry I haven't checked back in, things have been hyper busy. We ended up with 12 chicks: 2 Porcelain Belgian d'Uccles, 1 Black Mottled Belgian d'Uccle, 1 Black Silkie, 1 Cuckoo Silkie, 1 Blue Giant Cochin, 2 Lemon Blue Giant Cochins, 2 Golden Laced Giant Cochins and 2 Salmon Faverolles. As for my suppliers, I got all of my eggs of ebay this year. The breeders are extremely nice, down-to-earth folks who replied with friendly emails, bent over backwards to please and in most cases put in an extra egg or two. They also wrapped the eggs extremely well and marked the boxes as to the contents. I did continue to have a low hatch rate this year, even for shipped eggs. I incubated 25 eggs in each incubator, and had 5 hatch in one incubator, 7 in the other. At least hatching eggs by mail this time tells me that it isn't my flock that's to blame. I opened the unhatched eggs, and found eggs at all stages of development, literally from just-started to full-term chicks. They seemed to be spread out equally, too--I didn't see a higher percentage of chicks at certain stages. And both incubators reflected the same results. So I really don't know WHAT is going on with the incubators. One is 10+ years old, the other 2 years old and are identical. I am following instructions religiously, temp and humidity are maintained correctly. From now one I'm not going to incubate more than a dozen or so eggs at a time and see how that goes. The incubator thing is making me crazy. Anyone else who hatches eggs in an incubator--how many eggs do you set at once? Have you ever loaded your incubator to it's maximum number? Velvet ~:>
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We have two identical Little Giant model 9200 still-air incubators. One we have upgraded to forced-air by installing a fan kit. We haven't really noticed a difference at hatch time between the two, although forced-air units are supposed to be better! 12 Chicks right now with two more on the way! One Birchen Marans, Two Buff Brahmas, six Light Brahmas and three blue/gray Giant Cochins hatched so far. :) Velvet ~:>
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Well I suppose if you free-range you are used to predators of some sort coming around. If she raises them where they are, it's possible when they follow mama down 1 or 2 may get hurt with the fall, some will make it though I'm sure, maybe all of them. I don't free range my chickens, but I do my ducks. My ducks to date have not had a clutch born alive. We have, however, had 1 pair of Canada Geese nest here every year. This year, she hatched out 5 goslings about 2 weeks ago. 1 remains alive. Last year she had 6, 3 lived to adulthood. The year before none, she re-set and 2 lived to adulthood, I don't remember the prior years but never have all lived to adulthood. The mother will protect them-they will all scurry under her. Your rooster will (or should) protect her & the chicks, too. The other hens may or may not try to hurt the chicks, but mama will cover them with her body/wings. I guess the question is how heavy is your predation? Are you willing to lose several of the chicks to the risks of freeranging? If not, I'd pen her with the chicks for at least a week or 2, maybe more, until they are mobile & alert. Brendasue
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velvet_sparrow
Original Author
15 years ago
No, if you refrigerate the eggs it kills off any chance of life. We kept them in a bowl on the kitchen counter.

2 chicks hatched so far, one is fresh, one is dry & in the brooder box. Another chick is pipping. :)

We had disable the chat, it was crashing the cam. Besides, people were getting stupid and disgusting. Not the place for that.

Velvet ~:>
beegood_gw
15 years ago
WEll now I can get my neices to watch the Cam. I was going to earlier but with those goons on there there was no way. Glad you disabled it. But it sure is addicting to watch Thanx.
johanna_h
15 years ago
Velvet--

I just got back from a Memorial Day dinner and it looks like more activity in the incubator! How many chicks now?

Frankly, I am glad you cut off the chat. It was really kind of an irritating distraction.

Congratulations on the success!

--Johanna
velvet_sparrow
Original Author
15 years ago
Yeah, word spread to other sites and the idiots flooded in. :( The folks from SomethingAwful are usually mostly OK.

We have one chick hatched, dried and in the brooder box. Two more are hatched and drying out still in the incubator...and getting their sea legs. :) Before we go to bed tonight we'll put the 2 chicks into the brooder box with the other one.

I THINK I hear more muffled in-egg peeping from the new incubator, but can't be sure. Nothing at all in the old incubator yet. :(

Velvet ~:>
gardengalrn
15 years ago
How neat!!!!!!! I popped in (1 a.m.) and see one little guy who still looks a bit wet. I'm so excited for you!! Lori
johanna_h
15 years ago
What time does the camera come back on??? I'm going to at work for a while today and I'm hoping for some online entertainment!!

==Johanna
sullicorbitt
15 years ago
Velvet, congrats on the new chicks! I'm so bummed the site went down, I saw the chat and agreed w/your comments above. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the remaining eggs!

Sheila
johanna_h
15 years ago
I love that the camera is on the chicks now! The dark one is a real camera-hog, isn't it?! And having their "peep peeps" is an added bonus.

Good work, Velvet!

--Johanna
velvet_sparrow
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the kind words, everyone. The cam will be on the brooder box for the next few days, with sound most of the time. Turns out we only had three eggs hatch out of all of those. But the three chicks we got are robust and perky, with no problems.

We are REALLY stumped as to what the problem is. It has to be something we are doing, although we are doing everything like we have always done it, and in the past have had only a few eggs out of a whole bunch that DIDN'T hatch. The chances of the new incubator being bad as WELL as the old one are astronomical, and we know the eggs are fertile.

I'm going to call Miller Manufacturing tomorrow and get their 2 cents.

Meanwhile, anyone else have any problems with the Little Giant still-air incubators? We've had low hatch rates with and without an automatic egg turner.

Velvet ~:>
sullicorbitt
15 years ago
Hi Velvet,
last year I had a HORRIBLE hatch rate w/my two little giants, I think I was keeping the humidity too high (ours if forced air). This year I kept the humidity much lower prior to the last 3 days and I got a much better rate of hatch. Also I tossed my egg turner and turned by hand.

Do you use a hydrometer? and did you check the unhatched eggs? were they fully developed? Were they dry or sticky?

Sheila
claraserena
15 years ago
What adorable little chicks! What kind are they?
velvet_sparrow
Original Author
15 years ago
I haven't checked the eggs yet, they have until 8PM tonight before I'll call it and break down the incubators. Humidity may be the culprit here, along with other factors. We're going to put the incubators BACK into the kitchen for the next batch. More inconvenient for us, but apparently better for the eggs!

QUESTION: We you guys turn eggs, how far do you open the incubators? Just enough to sneak your hand in, or all the way? Part way?

The eldest chick, the large dark one we call Nugget, has Phoenix (Barred Rock/Americaunas mix) for a dad, and either Maggie (New Hampshire) or Baby (Kraeinkoppe) for a mom.

The other two are both bantams, with Chicken Sister (9+ year old Buff Cochin bantam!) for a mom, dad so far unknown, both Phoenix and Scott (d'uccle/Frizzle bantam) are romancing her, they think she's the hottest thing going. :)

The two bantam chicks are cool because Chicken Sister is the one who became egg bound a few months back, when she suddenly came back into lay after having stopped for at least a year and a half. We've had her for 9 years, and got her and her sister as adults, so we don't know her true age. It's pretty nifty to have babies from her. :)

Velvet ~:>
johanna_h
15 years ago
Kind of remarkable that Chicken Sister would still be fertile at this point, isn't it?

Your chicks have cheered my day today -- I kept a live window open on my work computer so that I could check in on them whenever I came through the office. My boss was grumpy today and said "boy, wouldn't it be nice to have all that time to set something like that up?" but I didn't let her grumpiness spill over into chick-viewing-land.

Nugget and the little kids are great!

--Johanna
velvet_sparrow
Original Author
15 years ago
You know, it was not expensive in money OR time to do this, it was pretty darned simple. :)

DH got a PS EyeToy color camera for $5.00 at Gamestop, and YahooLive is the host for the cam, sound and chat, at no cost to us. My husband had the know-how to get things going, but you can find out online and it isn't difficult or complicated. The number of people viewing the cam and talking in chat crashes my husband's computer sometimes, but we just restart things and everything's fine. We wanted to hatch chicks anyway, so thought we'd share the experience. The cam just pointed through the viewing panes in the lid of the incubator, now we set it inside the brooder box.

Baby chicks DO have a wonderful effect on all who gaze upon them, it's like Valium for your eyes. *L*

And yeah, it is VERY remarkable that Chicken Sister has babies this late in life--but then, both of the boys LOVE her to distraction, you should have seen them run over and burble over her when we brought her back from the vet after her egg-binding adventure. What a couple of love-struck chuckleheads. :) It was very sweet, they missed her so!

We'll be hatching again the weekend of June 21st, and will resume chickam then, if anyone wants to watch. We will have our incubators issues solved before we start more eggs.

Velvet ~:>
tcjotm
15 years ago
It's been about 5 years since I hatched using my Little Giant. First few years were great but then succeeding years the hatch rate went down. I don't know if the problem was inbreeding depression or else environment.

Regarding the Little Giant incubator, it doesn't seem to keep up temperature properly in the late evening/early mornings when the ambient (ie. outside the incubator itself) temps fall, perhaps less than 65-70 degrees F. Problem is, it seemed to fall below where it was suppose to be. That is, the room temps need to be about 70 degrees F so that the Little Giant has sufficient power to maintain a proper incubating temp of 100 degree F (forced air) or 102 degree F (still air). Yes, it seems strange. But JMO, the Little Giant was not powerful enough to "keep temps" when the room temps fell too much.

BTW, I live in So Cal, too (Tujunga). If you wish to try hatching a few Marans eggs I'd give you a few to try. My birds are about 5-7 years old but two are still laying, right now. I don't know if the roo is fertile but I'd be curious to know if their eggs are hatchable.
aimeed
14 years ago
Can anyone tell me what to do? Two of our hatched chicks are covered in sticky--what I'm guessing is dryed yolk or albumen. Is there anything I can do to help save them? One place I read to leave it, another person told me to wash it off. They are my daughter's chicks, and she's pretty sad about it. (She already lost 34% of her mail order chicks this week, because the post office lost them and the shipment took 4 days!) Thanks for any help.
velvet_sparrow
Original Author
14 years ago
DON'T WASH THEM! Chilling can be fatal. Let them mature a bit and work on preening themselves.

How old are they, and are they hatchery chicks as well? Can you post pictures?

What the post office did is unforgivable, they basically tortured and made those chicks die a slow death. I'd notify the hatchery and see about replacements. I'm surprised ANY of them lived. How are they doing now?

Velvet ~:>

Now Hatching! Chickam2008 Is A Go! Come See Baby Chicks Hatching!

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