And my youngest son had a birthday-but I'll write about that in another post when I have time to actually do some reflecting.
Right now I am giddy about this hatch. I started out with 14 eggs shipped from a backyard breeder on BYC (www.backyardchickens.com). C. dropped an egg immediately, so we put 13 into the incubator. After 8 days I candled the eggs and found that 6 of them were not viable. We were left with just 7 eggs.
On Day 21 we had our first Welsummer chick. It took him over 12 hours to hatch. Today is Day 22 and we have 3 more chicks, and one egg that is pipping. The remaining 3 eggs don't show signs of life yet.
This has been a very slow hatch. Last year when I hatched my own eggs they pipped and hatched so quickly, in under 12 hours. They also were all hatched out by Day 22. I believe the shipped eggs may take a little longer just becuase they have suffered some stress from the shipping, plus my room temperature is a little lower than it really should be. I think it is recommended that room temp be at least 65, and we are closer to 62-63 on most days. If I only get 4 chicks out of these eggs I will be disappointed. I was hoping to have at least 3 pullets and 1 rooster for myself and share some of the extra birds with friends of mine. That may not be happening this time though-with my luck they will all turn out to be roosters!
In order to deal with the staggered hatch, I decided to leave the egg turner with the Buckeye eggs in the incubator during the Welsummer hatch. I removed 3 of the turner flats and bulit cardboard walls around this gap. I put the Welsummer eggs inside of this wall with the hope that it would keep the hatching chicks out of the turner. It worked well on Day 21 when I just had one chick, but now that chick managed to hop over the wall and is sitting on the turner! Luckily he is not on the side that has the Buckeye eggs, so those cannot be harmed, but I am worried about the chick getting stuck in the turner. I may have to open the bator and push him back over the wall, though I will have to be careful as opening the bator could potentially kill any chicks that are pipping or zipping at the time.
