Wyandotte hatching update day 18

Day 18 of the hatching of Silver Lace Wyandotte Bantams in the new incubator is proving to be exciting, for me anyway!

Hatching egg, candled at 18 days

I candled the eggs again last night and saw what I am hoping is a chick, moving around in the egg.  The photo is to the left and you can quite clearly see the blood vessels.
There are some quite strange air sack shapes going on in both of the remaining eggs.  I hope this is not a bad sign.

As it is 3 days before hatch, I have removed the 4 non-fertile eggs and the dividers separating the eggs and the auto turning mechanism has been turned off.
It is recommended to increase the humidity for the hatching period.  I had no idea how to do this until I read Katie Thears Incubation, A guide to Hatching and Rearing book and the instructions that came with my incubator.

Apparently you may not necessarily need to add more water but just reduce the temperature by half a degree to 37 degrees c and this increases humidity.

My Incubator manual also helped my understand things a little clearer.  Its not the level of water in the incubator dish, but the surface area of water.  So if you fill two dishes with water a quarter full each, it will produce higher humidity than if you fill one dish to the full capacity!

So, I am still clinging onto a little hope that the two remaining eggs will hatch.  If they do, it will go a little way in helping me set up my little project of breeding pure breed poultry, 1) to ensure their survival, 2) for fun and 3) to encourage other chicken keepers or want to be keepers, that pure breed is an option over hybrid birds.

Wyandotte Goldlace bantams at 14 weeks

Here are a few photos of the Gold Lace Wyandottes, taken more recently in the snow!

Not happy hens on the snow

I seem to be getting as addicted to taking photos as I am keeping hens and hatching chicks!  Nevermind!  Could be worse!

Wyandotte Chick with mum

I resisted the urge to drone on about it.  The hens did not like it at all but I quite enjoyed our little wintry spell.  Certainly made a change to all the mud!

Hens and chicks, sheltering from a hail shower

In the last half hour we had a heavy hail storm.  I had let the Chickens our earlier in the day.  Seems the boys climbing frame has another use in the winter!





Thanks for reading.