Chickam Eggs For 2025 Candled!

For those who don't know, on the 10th day of incubation we candle (shine a bright light) through the eggs to check for embryos--and weed out any duds.

So far I'm cautiously optimistic that the 5 hour power outage we suffered on the 2nd day of incubation hasn't affected our eggs. We really won't know until hatch day, May 31st - June 1st. 

 

But here's what we have!

Out of 15 eggs set, we have 10 with embryos, another one is an unknown because of a shell to dark to definitively see through (it stays in anyway), and 4 duds that never developed (eggs from Boudica - gold laced Wyandotte, Arson - Light Brahma mix, and two that were possibly from Gretchen - lavender splash Orpington).

 

Here's the 2025 Chickam roster of 11 eggs, with mamas listed if we know them. Turns out camping in the coop for two days obsessively watching eggs fall out of hen asses paid off!

 

1 - Peanut (Americaunas, dark shell, so unsure if viable)

2 - Takoyaki (Giant Cochin/Americanas mix, hatched 2024)

4 -  Bobo (tiny black bantam Cochin'd'Uccle mix)

5, 6 - Luna (silver-gray bantam Cochin mix)

7, 8 - Brick (gray/lemon bantam Cochin mix)

9, 10 - Large White eggs - Apricot? (Danish Brown Leghorn)

13, 15 - Arson (Light Brahma mix)

 

We're disappointed that Gretchen and Sticky weren't mamas this year...but in exchange they have BOTH gone broody and stand a great chance of being recruited to be Chickam mom this year!

For dads we have: Mjolnir the buff Orpington, Eggroll the blue laced red Wyandotte, and Bacon, a bantam Belgian D'anvers. I'm betting Bacon will be daddy for the bantam hens--the big girls are too optimistic of a climb for him. And the big boys have trouble locating the...um...needed area to sucessfully 'daddy' for the bantam hens.

But they've surprised us in the past!

 

 Next stop is hatch day!

When we go live, you'll see the livestream to click on here:  Chickam 2025 Live Stream

 

 

IT HAS BEGUN!

In prepping for our annual Chickam webcast, I run the incubator and associated equipment for at least a week. This year was no different, and everything had been purring along beautifully...

...until three days before I was due to set the eggs in the incubator.

 

That's when my trusty, 8 year old ReptiPro incubator suddenly stopped heating.

Despite opening it up for a good cleaning (and finding nothing appeared amiss), it refused to be resurrected. Well and truly borked. And the ReptiPro company no longer exists, haha.

 

Okay, I find one over at Vevor for a reasonable price that looks identical to my old ReptiPro, and get it ordered. But this means it will also be subject to a week-long test run, so our original Chickam start date & hatch date are out the window. 

 

Luckily it performs well, despite a few kinda big issues, cool chicken-disco blue light aside.

 

See that black thing on the top? That's a madly spinning, UNCOVERED fan. As you stand in front of the incubator it is below your eye level...and easy to forget it's there. Perfect for taking the hide off the back of your hand when you reach in there, haha.

I know this, because...

Yeah.

 

The exposed cord running from it down to the built-in fan is...odd, and no doubt will get pecked by curious chicks. Also, the two racks we always used in the ReptiPro to hold eggs are impossible, because (as revealed in the manual, no less!) there is a FIVE DEGREE TEMPERATURE SPLIT  BETWEEN THE TWO RACKS.

I tested it, and sure enough, one rack ran at 99.5, the other at 104.5 

Chicken eggs require a constant incubation temperature of 100.5, haha.

 

We must use the space between the upper and lower racks. This means we can only run ONE rack of 12-15 eggs, depending on their size.

But by far the worst thing is, there's no cord notch in the frame that the ReptiPro had--I cannot use my trusty water weasel/temperature probe combination to mimic an egg and give me a dead-on temperature reading inside an egg. And I don't have time to cut a cord notch in the brand-new incubator (for extra fun, the manual says there IS a notch. It lies).

*sigh*

 

Okay, run with what ya got. So here it is, today we started 15 eggs from our flock! In an effort to get eggs from certain hens, the kid and I spent two solid days sitting out in the coop, Johnny-on-the-spot catching the girls laying eggs...with so-so success. That's why you'll see names written on eggs--the ones with a question mark means we are only 90% certain of mama.

 

I'll candle them in 10 days to see how many embryos we have and remove any duds. Hatch day *should* be Saturday, May 31st - Sunday, June 1st.

 

When the first egg pips, we'll start our YouTube webcast here:

www.youtube.com/@jackshenhouse 

Morehen's Disease Flare-Up

 That's what everyone's calling it.

Because today the kid and I went to the first poultry swap of the season for our local chicken club. I took along some hatching eggs to sell.

And we came home with...

Triffid, a Polish mix chick approximately 4 weeks old. Triffid didn't really dig picture time and tried to sneak off. The green thing was a marker from her seller, she didn't get to keep her bling.

Wingding, a frizzle Silkie mix, approximately 3 weeks old. Wingding is a fiesty little stinker and wants to FIGHT YOU.

Last is Eggroll, a splash Blue Laced Red Wyandotte approximately 1 week old. A very pretty breed, kinda rare, that's been on my 'want' list for a long time!

But...that's not all. We also picked up Swiffer, a frizzle bantam Cochin hen. Swiffer has had a rough day, poor baby, and is really feeling it, so better pics in a day or so when she's stronger. But she was griping at me and giving me hell at the swap, very talkative. She has the bald head typical of a hen popular with the fellas, and her seller said the eggs she lays for the next week or so should be fertile!

Lastly...yeah. There are calico bantam Cochin eggs from both smooth coat and frizzle birds. We don't know what we'll get when they hatch!

So yep, there'll be another hatch in 3 weeks. I'll add a few of our eggs to these six when I set them. Since we have 4-5 broody hens now, there *might* be a broody mama for this batch! It all depends on how cool she'd be with sharing the brooder with a bunch of 5 week old chicks--I don't have room for a second brooder box, they'll have to share!

Oodles Of Embryos!

 Hey, we got us embryos here!

Out of the 28 eggs I set in the ReptiPro, here's how things shake out:
16 have embryos!
Also, 2 more *might* be early quitters, but I'm leaving them in to be sure. I'll check again on lockdown day (three days before our hatch day of April 8-9th) and pull any definite quitters then.
10 eggs were duds (never developed), these include three bantam eggs and eggs from Slick Charlie (Partridge Rock, Chickam class of '21) and Cheerio (Red Star mix, Chickam class of '19).

Of the original 28, eggs from Spork (Barred Rock, Chickam class of '21), Sesame (Smokey Pearl, Chickam class of '22) and Brick (bantam Cochin/d'Uccle mix, Chickam class of '19) all have embryos! Only one other bantam egg besides Brick's has an embryo, the other 3 were duds.
Two of the three eggs from my local friend have embryos, the other was a dud.

I kinda blame so many duds (and possibly the early quitters) on our extra-harsh and cold winter. Even though we gathered eggs 2-4 times a day, they were always very cold. Several feet of snow on the ground since December 31st, and we still have low 40's days/low 20's nights (I think we've only broken 50 degrees two days since Jan 1), another storm moving in today.

Other than my original Govee unit failing (they replaced it super quick, I'm very impressed with their customer service), all of the equipment is working like a champ--no temperature spikes/drops from the ReptiPro.

Fingers crossed for lots of healthy lil' chicks! 

We Are 'Go' For Our 15th Year Of Chickam !

28 C-Seeds have been placed in the ReptiPro...now to wait for three weeks!

 

All of the equipment has been calibrated and is working great!

The red things on the left are a toy called 'water weasels', each one has a thermometer probe in it--one goes to the Spot Check, the other to a new Thermoworks Chef's Alarm. Yes, the Chef's Alarm unit is technically for the BBQ...but hey, it works. It does temperature and humidity, you can set a high/low range on it and it'll alert you to any deviations. As for the use of the water weasels--it's a hack:  the water weasel simulates an egg, and inserting the temp probe gives you the most accurate idea of how the weather is inside an egg! This is vital, because there is a very narrow temperature range required by eggs in order for them to hatch. Too hot or too cold, and no chicks.

The last two years we've had such a miserable hatch, plus chick deaths, that I made some changes this year...and having four thermometers and two hygrometers is one of them!

The shot glass in the bottom holds water, you need 55% humidity in the incubator. The square white thing on the second shelf is the sensor for the Govee thermometer/hygrometer, it synchs with my phone and charts the temperature/humidity every 15 minutes, with the Govee you can set a high/low range and it'll alert you to any excursions outside that range so you can adjust your incubator.

On the top right is a new thermometer/hygrometer--between the Govee and this one, I know the humidity on each shelf.

I'll candle the eggs in 10 days to see how many embryos we have.

Meanwhile, they'll get turned 5 times a day!

Gearing Up For Chickam...

So I'm doing my best to avoid a repeat of the chick deathfest that has plagued Chickam for the last two years.

Chicks need to incubate at a temperature of 99.5, with humidity for day 1-18 at 50%, 65% days 19-21. Nobody does it better than a hen.

Keeping the temp/humidity consistent inside an incubator is generally agreed to be a MASSIVE PAIN. Since 2/6 I've been test running the ReptiPro and all of our assorted devices (including some nifty new ones!) that track temperature/humidity...I wanted to work out all possible bugs. Everything got calibrated (ice bath AND salt method), several times just to be sure.

Thanks to a generous Chickam patron, we were able to get some new equipment. The first is a Chef's Alarm temperature monitor (yes, it's for use in barbecuing. Hey, any port in a storm). You can set the alarm to alert you if the temps go above/below the range you specify, and it uses a probe (I had to order a shorter one than the one pictured) that is going inside a water weasel on one of the incubator racks. Our old Spot Check temp probe will go in a water weasel on the other rack.

Next is a Govee Smart thermometer/Hygrometer. VERY accurate, the little unit goes inside the incubator and synchs to your smartphone--and tracks temp/humidity spikes and drops by hour, day, week and month.

 

Lastly, I got a new digital hygrometer, so I could have it on one shelf and the Govee on the other.

I even dismantled the ReptiPro in order to clean out dust/chick dander from its innards. Which was a good thing, as I didn't realize just how nasty it had gotten in there over the years! I took the back off to find this:

And...

When you can write 'Ick!' in the dust, you know it needs cleaning.

In the end, everything was thoroughly cleaned.

I've poured over my hatch records going back to the beginning of time. Read articles online hour after hour until my eyeballs are about to fall out & my brain is overstuffed on high altitude hatching. I came up with little that was new to me, which is good--but I think I figured out the cause of the chicks dying and have done everything I can to prevent it.

One thing about the chicks that died last year, was that they ALL died 4 days post-hatch, within a few hours of each other, and all displayed identical symptoms.

It's a red flag--a chick survives it's first 1-3 days living off the last of the egg yolk it absorbs just before hatching. It's why hatchery chicks survive 1-3 days of shipping w/no food or water. I suspect our incubation temps/humidity were off without us knowing it, which caused internal defects to form. I think this made it impossible for the chicks to process any food they ate post-hatch--and they weakened & died.

It would fit. The chicks did tend to walk like their gut bothered them...

When I calibrated everything this year, it turns out that the old hygrometer was reading 11% too humid & the Spot Check temperature 1 degree too cold! It's amazing we got anything to hatch last year.

Hopefully that's now under control. Hatching at high altitudes is already hard enough, there is an unavoidable ding to your hatch rate of 50% or so. No magic bullet for a great hatch at our altitude, but every little 'help' counts at 4800 feet!

Meanwhile, here are the eggs we'll choose from!

Ours (some we know are from certain hens):

And eggs from our local friend:

Getting these eggs was a whole 'nother mini-adventure that involved trying to drive out to his house the day after our area had a voluntary evacuation from flooding by the lastest in a series of Atmospheric River megastorms. Our friend is WAY out across the valley with no other houses within miles...

...so of course we got stuck in the mud.

We eventually got loose, but had to give up and go home. Our poor car--!

Kind friend met us in town the next day with the eggs.

So, we're as ready as we're gonna be! The eggs go into the incubator this Saturday, March 18th for a target hatch date of Easter weekend, April 8-9th. BUT--as usual, start checking our YouTube channel a day or so BEFORE that, as high altitude chicks tend to hatch early!

I'll post updates on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/chickam2008

When Chickam starts, you can watch it here--if you tune in and see EGGS instead of Jack, the hatch has begun! Click on the 'Notify Me' icon to get an alert from YouTube when we go live:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CteVAyCD2iY

Chickam Is Almost Here!

 WE HAVE EMBRYOS! Here's the break down:

I set 29 eggs in the ReptiPro incubator ten days ago, 17 were our eggs, 12 were eggs from neighbors (marked with an 'N' on the large end).The neighbors run a mixed flock of Dark & Light Brahmas, Salmon Faverolles, Australorp, and Barred Rocks. The eggs numbered 18 and above are the neighbor's eggs.

 

 

When I candled tonite: 18 eggs have embryos (10 ours, 8 neighbors), 2 not sure of (both ours), & 9 duds that never developed (5 ours, 4 neighbors)  

Sadly, the eggs from Strychnine were duds. Hers were a long shot anyway, as she'd been away from the roosters for so long recovering from an injury. But the eggs from Rapunzel (#7), Nyx (the dark brown eggs #1-2), Peanut (blue/green #5-6) and Slick Charlie (medium brown #8) all have embryos!

Only a couple of banty hens are broody right now--too small to cover that many chicks. Hoping one of the big girls will go over to the Dark Side and volunteer to raise the chicks in time!

 

Chickam in 10 days! The hatch *should* be Sat. April 16th-Sun. April 17th. But start checking the following link 2 days ahead of time as they LOVE to hatch early. It'll be webcast here, if you tune in and see EGGS, the hatch has begun!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5iMWhoO42w

Hatch updates on our Twitter Chickam account: https://twitter.com/chickam2008

Chickam Candidates!

On March 13th we set 36 eggs in the incubator, and at 13 days in, I candled them. We had 26 eggs with embryos, with another 2 eggs with shells too dark to be sure.

Three days before hatch, we moved the eggs to the bottom of the incubator, crossed our fingers and waited!

Now to see what we get! I'm especially curious about the large, white eggs--possibly from our white Leghorn hen, Boombox.

Chickens: 1, Humans: 0

AARRRGGGHHH, DAMNED CHICKENS ANYWAY--!

Welp, it looks like y'all will be getting a bonus Chickam WITH at least one broody mama in about 14 days.
Look who successfully managed to hide a damned nest:

That's Uptown Bus, a one year old bantam buff Orpington hen. The weather warmed to the point where we didn't have to coop the chickens every night any more, and the little snot immediately snuck back behind one of the propped-open (we do this so our Nevada winds don't slam them around) coop doors, went broody and made a nest.
We didn't notice.
Mother of God, she had NINETEEN EGGS under her.

Here is the traitorous little bitch with her pre-spawn

SO SMUG

Horrified, I tried to remember when the last time we KNEW there was no nest back there. About two weeks, we decided...
I just now candled the eggs.

Seven embryos. All roughly 10-12 days along.
Are they all at the same stage of development, so they'll hatch together? Of course not. Can I really look into my kid's pleading eyes and tell her I'm just gonna toss these eggs? OF COURSE FUCKING NOT.

Sigh...
Okay. So the four chicks in the brooder box will be 5 weeks old this weekend, they will go out into the flock for good at 8 weeks. If things work out right, there will be no overlap and we can smoothly transition from older chicks going out to Bus coming in and hatching her brood...

Who am I kidding?! Bus will hatch her demon spawn before the older chicks are okay to go outside, we'll have to section off the brooder box, madly dash to and fro bringing hatching chicks + one VERY pissy broody banty hen into the house the moment hatch begins so the other hens don't try to steal the chicks, and the babies die in the unsuing henfight...

...and I can practically guarantee, because it's US, that Bus will abandon any unhatched eggs once she has some chicks, and since I DON'T KNOW exactly what stage the eggs are at so can't reliably use the ReptiPro, I'll have to take the close-to-hatch eggs she's left and place them under ANOTHER broody hen so THEY can hatch. Since we have 8 broody hens right now, at least there's that. The kid has been told to keep an eagle eye on Bus, remove any fresh eggs the other treasonous hens lay with her, and watch for peeping/pipping. Once pipping starts it's game on.

That sound you hear is me screaming in mouth-frothing frustration. DAMNED SNEAKY BANTIES, ANYWAY!

More Eggs!

Today's egg donation to our local food closet, 14 dozen!

Hey, it's spring and the hens are going NUTS.

The Few, But Mighty!

Welp, this being a very strange year, it might as well affect Chickam, as well.

Out of the 36 eggs I set in our ReptiPro incubator ten days ago...only 10 have developed and show embryos. Weirdly, six of those eggs are ones we got from our neighbors, that had been refrigerated...I wasn't holding out much hope for those! An additional 6 eggs were too dark to tell if embryos were there, so I left them in the incubator...but time will tell, for those six.

For the rest, a whopping 13 were fertile yet never developed, with 5 more having damaged yolks. Only two eggs were infertile.

What does all this mean? Well, basically our hens and roos are doing their chicken thing and giving us strong-shelled, fertile eggs. WHY they never developed, not even for one day...is a mystery. The flock is healthy, and the ReptiPro incubator is working perfectly.

But...we'll take what we can get! On the plus side, with a small hatch comes the possibility that one of our broody hens can foster mama the chicks, provided we have a broody or two to choose from in two weeks. Right now we have several hens that are broody, so we'll see!

Onward to our hatch day of Saturday, April 11th!*


*Knowing our eggs, the actual hatch will start 1-2 days early tho, start checking our YouTube page on the 9th!

Chickam 2020 Is On!

Crappy scary human viruses shouldn't be allowed to spoil all your fun, or totally disrupt your traditions!

Today we set 36 eggs in our ReptiPro incubator. Incubation should take 21 days, and our planned hatch date is April 11th, the day before Easter...although like always, I'm sure the bantam eggs will hatch in 20 days instead of 21, like normal chickens. So I'd say start checking in on day 19 of incubation--April 9th--for updates.

Eight of the eggs were a gift from our kind neighbors down the street who have some white Leghorns and lovely, fluffy buff Brahmas...but I'm afraid they refrigerated the eggs, which likely killed the embryos.  It broke my heart, when they gave us the egg carton and it was cold. But what the heck, we'll try them anyway--so eggs numbered 1 through 8 are the neighbor's eggs. The other thing is that most of the eggs they gave us are large, white eggs--and buff Brahmas lay light brown/tan eggs.
We'll just see what we get, it'll be an adventure!

The rest of the eggs are from our flock, and in all sizes, shapes and colors--a mix of standard size and bantam. For daddys, we have Milton, our bantam Cochin/Belgian d'Uccle mix roo, Bacon, our tiny bantam roo whom I believe is a Quail D'Anvers (we got him at Tractor Supply last year so he's a bit of a mystery) and Rafiki (Rafe), our Russian Orloff roo that we got at a local poultry swap last year. None of our rooboys are big, even Rafe is on the small side.

 So pictured below are our 36 starters--I'll candle the eggs at 10 days in (March 31st) and remove any duds.

Other local folks around here that I contacted had no eggs to spare, as people are panic-buying eggs. Even when I offered to trade my eggs for theirs, they had none.
Another issue may be difficulty in getting used major appliance boxes for me to knock together a brooder box with, as I usually do. Since non-essential businesses here in Nevada have been ordered to close, the local appliance store we usually get boxes from may be closed for the duration. We may have to get creative...

Damned virus anyway, interfering with my chicken plans--!

As incubation progresses, I'll update our Chickam Twitter account: Chickam Twitter
and our Chickam YouTube channel--inactive until the hatch actually starts. If you tune in to our YouTube channel and see eggs, the hatch has begun!: Chickam YouTube Webcast

Right now we only have a couple of broody hens, all are bantams that we hatched last year so their mama quality is unknown. Hopefully some of the bigger girls will step up sometime in the next three weeks and we'll have a mama for the chicks--but usually we have too many chicks for a banty hen to successfully mother.

But dang it--whatever happens, there will be baby chicks here in three weeks! Hang in there, Chickam fans, baby chick fun is on it's way...

It Has Begun!

We have out first pip!  #6, a Dark India Cornish Rock bantam egg has pipped!  I haven't started the cam yet since it can be hours until the next step--unzipping. Unzipping is where the chick, starting at the pip hole, will peck around the shell in a straight line, then eventually kick free and hatch. This can also take hours. As soon as the chick starts to unzip, I will start the cam.

The chicks pip in order to get fresh air, and to start the draw-down process. Draw-down is where the blood in the veins lining the eggshell drain and shrink as the chick draws it's blood, then the remainder of the yolk, up into it's body in preparation for hatching.  After that, the chick will start to unzip.

Hatching is VERY strenous for the chicks...and it doesn't do ME any good, either. It's nerve-wracking.

It figures that it's a banty egg that has started early, as expected. Welp, no sleep for me...

One Week To Go!

I did the final candling tonight and checked the eggs that I wasn't sure about a week ago...and yeah, they are duds--all except one, which has a dark green shell and *may* have a chick inside (but honestly I doubt it), so it stays in the ReptiPro.

Here are our final 16 eggs!  We for SURE have 15 embryos, the 'iffy' egg is #31, the large dark green egg on the lower right, in front.

We have quite the mix of itty bitty eggs and big honkin' ones in there. It's gonna be an interesting brooder box...

Here's how they break down:

3 Dark India Cornish Bantam eggs: #1, 6 and 7
7 Bantam Cochin eggs (possible Frizzles): #18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25
6 Eggs from our flock, a mix of standard and 1 bantam eggs: #26, 27, 29, 31, 37 and 39 (the tiny bantam egg)

Sadly, none of the Polish or heavy/Brahma eggs developed, and only one of the Dark India Cornish Bantams did. When I did the breakout tonight of the dud eggs, all of the shipped ones were scrambled inside. Boo on the USPS and their rough handling!

One more week (or a couple of days less for the bantams!) until the hatch! The eggs are starting to jiggle a wee bit when I talk to them when I'm doing the turns...the chicks hear me!

Yikes, I gotta go build that brooder box...

We Have Embryos!

Welp, it's been 10 days and time to check for embryos, so tonight I candled the 39 eggs in the ReptiPro!

...and we have embryos, yay!

Right now we have a total of 15 live, oh-so-squirmy (they do NOT dig the bright light of candling) embryos. Of those, 3 are Dark India Cornish Bantams, 7 are Bantam Cochins (with a possibility of Frizzles) and 5 are eggs from our flock--mostly larger eggs but there is one *tiny* banty egg that we added to the ReptiPro at the last minute.

Further, there are another 13 eggs that I'm *pretty* sure are duds--some have detached aircells--but I'm leaving them in the incubator for now and will recandle them in 4 days; I'll pull any duds at that time.

Eleven other eggs were duds for sure and had never developed, I pulled those. Of the duds, three had a broken yolk (shipped eggs, likely scrambled by the USPS), one was bad (one of ours, I suspect bacteria got in through the shell), one of ours was infertile, and the rest were fertile but never developed.  Three (all Dark India Cornish) had detached aircells, more victims of rough handling in shipping.

Twelve days to baby chicks!!!
...or a bit less, given that there are banty eggs in there, and the little buggers like to hatch at 19-20 days instead of the standard 21--!

Countdown To The 10th Anniversary Of Chickam!

Today I set eggs in our good ol' ReptiPro incubator, in three weeks there should be chicks!

This is a landmark year--2018 marks the 10th year we've been hosting Chickam, our 24/7 webcast of the hatch of baby chicks and their subsequent 8 weeks of life.  We've been hatching chicks since about 2001, but only started the webcast in 2008.

Since this is both a special year, and Easter (our traditional hatch day) falls on April 1st this time around, we decided to hatch some special breeds--time for some feathered silliness!

So I shopped around on the Internet, and in addition to hatching some of our own eggs I got some Dark India Cornish Rock Bantams, some Polish (possible Frizzles) and Brahma mixes and Bantam Cochin (more possible Frizzles) mixes.  With Frizzles you don't know at hatch if you have a Frizzle or not--you have to wait until real feathers start to come in to spot the tell-tale curl to the feathers.  And since wing feathers come in first on a baby chick, that's where any frizzling will show up first.

Here are the eggs!

First up, some of the shipped eggs.  On the right, the large white eggs at the bottom are the 3 Polish eggs--speckled, buff, silved laced and gold laced are the colors we may get. At the top right are the 5 Brahma/Heavy breed mix eggs, they are more of a who-knows-what-you'll-get variety.

On the left are the 8 bantam Cochin eggs.  The 7 eggs marked 'MF' have a MilleFleur coloration, the one marked 'CB' is a calico color.  The egg marked 'Wiggles' is one of ours that happened to be in the picture. We decided later that it was likely NOT laid by Wiggles (a Belgian d'Uccle) but is more likely to have been laid by Popcorn, who is a bantam Cochin mix hen.

Next are the 9 Dark India Cornish Bantam eggs.  The one at the top was sadly broken in shipping, so we ended up with 9 instead of 10.  I also candled the others to check for cracks and saw some detached air cells (a very bad thing) in some of the eggs, which points to rough handling in shipping. I'm hoping for the best with these...

Finally, 13 eggs from OUR girls!  We always include some of our own eggs since shipped eggs have a notoriously low hatch rate due to the inevitable rough treatment they receive from the US postal service.

The 'Wiggles' egg is in there, and not pictured is a last-minute addition of a tiny bantam egg, likely from one of the d'Uccle girls.  But I went for a cross-section of our flock in this collection--some large breeds, some bantams, and everything in between.

We have a total of 39 eggs that I started today in the incubator. In addition to each egg getting a number and a breed mark when I knew it (no breed marks for our eggs, 'I' for the Dark India Cornish, 'P' for Polish, 'B' for Brahma mix and 'CB' and 'MF' for the bantam Cochins) I marked an X on one side and a O on the other, and started them with the X side up. Over the next three weeks I will turn the eggs 5 times a day, from X side up to O side up at each turn.

The device at the top right is a hygrometer, is measures the humidity in the incubator, which needs to be 50% for the first 18 days, 65% for the final three days. The cord on the left leads to a thermometer outside the incubator--the probe for the thermometer is stuck inside a glitter pink Disney princess water weasel toy--the water weasel simulates an egg, the probe gets stuck inside the thing to get you an idea of the weather INSIDE an egg, giving you a better hatch! You want a reading of 99.5 degrees inside the eggs.  At the very bottom of the incubator is a dish with water in it to provide humidity--the marbles are just so when the chicks hatch, they don't soak themselves or drown in the water dish.  I could have added the marbles later on, but wanted to get everything up to temperature at the beginning and not have to mess with it later.  The thin black silicone mat on the floor of the incubator will give the hatched chicks needed traction for the few hours they are drying out in the incubator so that they don't develop Spraddle Leg.

Ten days from now, I'll candle each egg.  Eggs that haven't started to develop an embryo will get pulled from the incubator, those with developing embryos remain.  If an eggshell is too dark to see through when candled (like the dark green and dark brown eggs), they stay in the incubator.  Usually only about half of the shipped eggs develop at best, but we tend to get about an 80% or better development on our eggs.

Chicken eggs typically hatch after 21 days of incubation, with bantam eggs sometimes hatching 1-2 days early-so I suggest you check the UStream Chickam channel starting on March 29th.  If all goes well, Chickam will be the weekend of March 31st-April 1st!  The cam isn't started until the first egg pips, so if you tune in to the UStream channel linked above and see EGGS, it means the hatch has begun!

Fingers crossed for lots of embryos in 10 days and a bunch of little April Fools in 3 weeks!

Hmmm...

The ReptiPro is ready!

 
Gathering egg candidates for Chickam this week...looks like someone was a little overanxious and popped out a wind egg...

One of these things is not like the others.....

I'm guessing it's a first egg from one of last year's girls.  Keep trying ladies, you'll get there!

And Here We Go!

So I went out the the incubator & brooder box, getting final touches ready...

Little things, like making sure Club Flamingo is set, along with a cuddle buddy for the chicks that the kid donated...

And I did the final turn of the Lot B eggs, placing them down on the floor of the incubator to join the Lot A eggs, plus adding more water to bring up the humidity to 65%.

And damned if I didn't see our first pip, on #15!  It's hard to see, but it's on the upper left on the shell and looks like a little half circle.  The egg is rocking back and forth and being quite active.  No other pips as yet, but several other eggs have been moving!

#15 will probably hatch in about 6-8 hours...maybe a bit more, but those banties are quick little stinkers!  When any egg is close to hatch, we'll start the cam!

Lockdown Day!

And yeah, even though with the ReptiPro incubator you don't actually do a lockdown (where you stop turning the eggs and do not open the incubator again until the hatch is done) on the eggs, day 18 of incubation will forever be 'lockdown day' to me.  With the ReptiPro you simply stop turning the eggs, but do open the incubator 5 times a day to let fresh air in.  So today was lockdown day for Lot A, the first group of eggs.  Lot B will join them tomorrow, meanwhile I'm still turning Lot B today.

We ended up with 13 embryos, 11 of our eggs and only 2 of the Dark Cornish that made it to this point.  To tell the truth, given the age and condition of the rest of the mail-order Dark Cornish eggs, if either of the chicks makes it and is healthy, it'll be a miracle.

But here they are!  Lot A has been moved down to the bottom of the incubator, where the humidity will be raised to 65%.  Banty eggs in front since I suspect those little stinkers will hatch first, probably even early.

Maybe even today... 
No pips or peeping yet, but some of the eggs are rocking when I talk to them!

My little homemade water weasel performed just fine and is still doing it's job...

As for the brooder box, it's been raining so non-soggy boxes were not to be found--but my husband found some fun raw materials for me to construct it out of...

It's a movie advertising display!

We don't want the glossy surface on the inside with the chicks, so here's the end product:

The brooder box will get the finishing touches of hay, heat lamp, food/water dishes, etc. today.  But we're ready!

I'm actually ahead of the banty eggs hatching FOR ONCE, HA!

I will update on the Chickam Twitter page when the hatch begins, and you can watch it on our UStream channel, here--if you tune in and see eggs, that means the hatch has begun!

Egg Candling Day!

Or night, to be more accurate.

Armed with my trusty LED desk lamp and a metal canning funnel turned upside-down over the thing, I was able to cup one hand around the eggs and use the other to gently rotate the egg until I could see how many potential chicks we have waiting in the wings.  The ReptiPro has been a darling, purring along and holding it's temperature and humidity beautifully.

I had one dozen Dark India Cornish eggs bought off ebay and shipped...and unfortunately, because of several different issues, will NOT be using this particular breeder again.  More on that later, but out of 12 eggs, I saw embryos in only 2, 6 were clear duds that never developed, and 4 others I was unsure of but gave the benefit of the doubt and returned to the incubator.  The 'unsure' ones I strongly suspect are duds with broken yolks, though.  We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Out of the 13 eggs from our hens, I saw embryos in 6, 6 I was unsure of (one may have quit, 5 others are too dark to candle positively but I think *do* have embryos), and 1 was a dud.

I will do a breakout on the 'dud' eggs to check for fertility, lack of freshness and other causes later on.

So right now we have 8 embryos for sure and 10 others that *might* have embryos!  I will candle again on day 17 (this Sunday) and remove any other eggs that have not progressed.  But I think I can safely say we will have about 13 chicks!


Now, back to the shipped eggs if you want to read the whole sad story...before I bid, I first contacted the seller weeks ahead of time and asked if he could ship the eggs within a certain date range so I could get them a few days before I planned on setting eggs.  No problem, he said.  So I went ahead and bid on one of his auctions and won it, sending him a message right away reminding him NOT to ship the eggs for another two weeks, as we had agreed.

A few days later (two weeks ahead of time), I was unpleasantly surprised to find a USPS box on my doorstep.  Not only that, but it was completely lacking any kind of 'Fragile' or 'Hatching Eggs, Do Not X-ray' stamp. Box kinda crunched on one end, but eggs packed well and no harm done.

Welp.

OK, contacted the seller, said I can't use these eggs in two weeks (every chicken breeder knows Rule #1:  you NEVER set old eggs to hatch). He said, sorry, he got mixed up. He also said that marking the package 'Fragile Do Not X-ray' would have made it 'suspicious' and subject to being opened and inspected (what do I care?)...he said the eggs should be 'fine'.

OK...contacted him again and said nope, I'm not gonna set 2 week old eggs, his mistake, so he needs to send a replacement shipment.

He said OK, but MADE ME PAY HIM ANOTHER 25 CENTS for him to print out a new shipping label before he'd do so!

Criminy.  OK, done.  Eggs shipped and received, box still not marked as 'Fragile' or 'Do Not X-ray'. *sigh...* But again, eggs packed well and seem in good condition.

Meanwhile my egg set day arrives and the new eggs and some of mine are started in the incubator, well and good.  I decided to do a breakout on the first shipment to check for fertility.

YIKES. Only 60-70% fertility.  Four of the eggs I opened were obviously very old and had started to rot--they hadn't gotten to the 'green and smelly' stage yet, but were clearly nearly there with weak yolks and foul, yellow whites with dark solids floating in them.  About 1/3 of the rest of the eggs were clearly not fresh and had started to turn with the yolk mottled and discolored, but the albumen as yet unaffected.  Not fresh--not candidates for hatching. To be fair, the eggs had good strong shells.

I took some pictures of what I'd found and sent them and an email to the seller to let him know...that was 11 days ago, no response yet.  It's really disappointing to run across a chicken breeder such as this, most are very proud of their eggs and would never send old eggs or a shipment that isn't clearly marked, 'Fertile Chicken Hatching Eggs--Please Handle With Care And Do Not X-Ray'.  It's dead standard marking for the outside of the box, and no one I know has every had an issue with it.  It's how I mark my egg shipments when I send out eggs.

So...that's my sad little chicken egg story.  Geez, I think I would have done better to take my money and throw it into the street...