Chicks not hatched!!

[MyParadiseFalls]

Some chicks poked thru air sac yesterday no progress this morning. Yesterday was day 21. When should I call it quits? I heard from one person no hatch on day 21 cull, others I heard don’t give up till day 26??

 

[MyParadiseFalls]

Some chicks poked thru air sac yesterday no progress this morning. Yesterday was day 21. When should I call it quits? I heard from one person no hatch on day 21 cull, others I heard don’t give up till day 26??

These are ayam cemani eggs, very expensive not something I can just “kill off”

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Just give them another day. They're not going to hatch immediately on day 21 every single time. I've also noticed the few times I raised cemanis that they were not early hatchers. The three I had make it to hatch took their sweet time

 

[Chookchicken]

I like to wait until day 25. If it hasn’t hatched by day 25 I like to candle the egg, although lots of people just chuck it. Don’t give up yet, some chicks just take longer.

 

[MyParadiseFalls]

I think I’m just gonna wait till day 25 and see what happens

 

[nuthatched]

Hi there, what temperatures and humidity did you run?
Were the sensors calibrated?
What model of incubator?
Still air or fan?
Turning?
Are these shipped eggs?
What day did you set?
When was the last candling?

 

[sourland]

Did you calibrate your thermomotor ? Incubating at lower temperatures can lengthen the incubation period. I'd give them a couple more days.

 

[SueT]

Another question about ‘day 21’—-did you count the day they began as 1 or as 0 ? It should be 0, sometimes people start counting with 1 and then think the eggs are late, when they are right on schedule.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Some chicks poked thru air sac yesterday no progress this morning. Yesterday was day 21. When should I call it quits?

Did you count the days correctly? You'd be surprised how many people get that wrong. An egg doesn't have a day's worth of development the instant you put it under a broody hen or in an incubator. It takes 24 hours for the egg to have a day's worth of development. You have to wait a day before you say "one". An easy way to check is that the day of the week you start them is the day of the week the 21 days are up. If you start them on a Friday, the 21 days are up on a Friday.

I'm purposely saying 21 days instead of saying they should hatch at 21 days. It is not unusual for the chicks to hatch as much as 2 full days early or late. There are several different possible reasons for that including heredity, humidity, how and how long the eggs have been stored before incubation started, or just differences in the eggs. Very important is incubation temperature, if it is slightly high they can hatch early, slightly low and they can be late.

I heard from one person no hatch on day 21 cull, others I heard don’t give up till day 26??

Did they tell you why? Context is often important in a lot of these things. The big hatcheries have to ship the hatched chicks within a certain window after they hatch or they will die in route. If they hatch after the others have shipped, they die. They don't want them hatching too early or too late. They go to great lengths to tweak their incubators to get exactly the right temperatures and humidities. Collection and storage of the eggs is tightly controlled. They control heredity by selecting their breeding flock from those that hatch at 21 days.

You may have reasons to control hatching this tightly but most of us don't. Most of us are going to be happy with any chicks we get, not just those that hatch at exactly the right time. Hopefully this will help you decide how important it is to you as to which chicks to keep or allow to hatch.

 

[wolfwalker]

21 days is an average not a rule. Some breeds routinely only take 19 days and some 23 days. if you've ever watched some of Murray McMurray hatcheries videos, you will notice that for a Monday hatch some eggs are set on Saturday and some are set on Tuesday to get the most hatched for a Monday mailo out date.