Give me some encouragement please!!

This is my first hatch, I have 6 Jersey giant eggs, 6 bantams and 5 runner duck eggs. (They arent all for me, my friend and I have gone halves on the incubator and we are in this together.) On day 9 I candled the eggs and one of the duck eggs and one of the bantam eggs were unfertilized so we are down to 15 eggs.

Its all going well, on day 18 I stopped turning them and placed them onto a damp towel in the bottom of the incubator. (The incubator is one that has a fan and a shelf that moves backwards and forwards turning the eggs, so I took out the shelf.)

on day 20 there was a tiny crack in one bantam egg which spread and then five hours later Rick the chick was born. I took him out of the incubator yesterday (day 22) because he wasnt drying properly and wasnt fluffy, I put him in the brooder with a soft toy and he seems happy enough and has gone all fluffy and cute.

None of the other eggs are even moving. Its now day 23, am I unlikely to get any more?

It seems odd to me that they were all placed in the incubator together but just one should hatch this much sooner, I would have expected it to be a somewhat staggered hatch but nothing for three days????

Has anyone else had this? and if so what happened?

I found a similar thread on this site and none of the other eggs hatched so now i'm completely paranoid and worried!!!!

Bantams can tend to hatch earlier than others, so I wouldn't worry too much yet. Also, if your temperatures were ever a little low, that could also make them hatch late. Do you know what your temperature and humidity were throughout incubation? Also, duck eggs don't hatch till 28 days, so those should still be incubating and being turned regularly, they don't go into lockdown until day 25.

Thank you, the duck eggs I have been turning by hand but I stopped yesterday, they are runner ducks, i was told they take 24 to 25 days. The temperature has been mostly constant at 101 Fahrenheit, the only times this has fluctuated are when I have opened the incubator, then it hasnt dropped below 98 for than a minute. I dont have a humidity indicator on my incubator but I have judged it by the amount of condensation on the walls, when it dries i add more warm water.

The other bantam eggs are still not moving but I thought I saw one wobble yesterday, it could just be that i'm staring at so hard that i am having visions though!

I am less worried about the ducks than the other chickens :-(

KirstieJG said:

Thank you, the duck eggs I have been turning by hand but I stopped yesterday, they are runner ducks, i was told they take 24 to 25 days.  The temperature has been mostly constant at 101 Fahrenheit, the only times this has fluctuated are when I have opened the incubator, then it hasnt dropped below 98 for than a minute.  I dont have a humidity indicator on my incubator but I have judged it by the amount of condensation on the walls, when it dries i add more warm water.

The other bantam eggs are still not moving but I thought I saw one wobble yesterday, it could just be that i'm staring at so hard that i am having visions though!

I am less worried about the ducks than the other chickens :-(

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I've never hatched runners before, so that's good to know! You could float test them as long as you're sure there's no pips - put them in a bowl of mildly warm water. Good eggs float to the top, and eggs that are definitely still alive actually wiggle and you can see the ripples in the water.

The only thing that concerns me is not knowing the humidity -with condensation on the walls that may mean it's been too high throughout incubation, and this can actually cause the chicks to drown in the shell. How do the air cells look? Are they about on par with this chart?

I didnt check on day 14 but I did on day 9 and on day 18 and they had increased to about about those sizes. I had no clue they could drown in the egg, i feel terrible because i thought it was better more humid than less because of the membrane drying out. How can I tell if they have drowned?

I am loathe to move them too much to do the float test I may wait a little longer yet. Should I dry out the incubator a little do you think?

I wouldn't, now that they are in lockdown more humidity is better, but during regular incubation, it's better to keep it somewhere between 30%-50% I've found so that the air cells develop well. If yours were looking good on day 18 you're probably okay there. I switched to a Brinsea myself because I just could not keep a stable humidity in my LG and my chicks kept drowning, so now I only use it as a hatcher. If there's no external pips it also wouldn't hurt to candle the eggs to look for internal pips - I do it all the time when hatches are running late just to see what's going on. The moving around for candling doesn't hurt them. I've seen newly hatched chicks play soccer with the unhatched eggs in the incubator and they all still hatched fine

Thank you so much for your advice. I am going to candle them and try and see what is going on.

okay, so some of them are not full in the non air pocket bit so I guess that means they died en route? some are full but there is no movement, should there be movement?

You're looking for a little moving shadow in there, that would be the beak in the air cell. If you don't see it, it means they haven't internally pipped, but doesn't necessarily mean that the died. Did you see any movement at all while candling?

no, no movement at all, should the non airsac bit be completely full?