First time hatching

[Nickie616]

We got fertile eggs from someone local for black copper marans and tried our first hatch 11 of the eggs that went in lockdown looked to be viable. So far we have had 4 chicks hatch. 2 on Saturday and one last night. Today will make day 24. Should we assume that no more will hatch now? I do not want to toss any eggs that might still have a chance.

The eggs the day we got them

This is the incubator we have

And the chicks that have hatched

 

[djh1982]

Congrats on the 4 hatchlings!!! I tried hatching some Buff Orpington eggs my first time incubating and got 0 out of 12.. I would have been extremely happy with 4. I asked that same question at day 22 with mine.. I couldn't bare the thought of tossing eggs I'd been tending to for so long and looking forward to hatching. Everything I saw on BYC said that if they don't hatch by day 25 it is very unlikely they will hatch. I gave mine till day 26. It was very sad and dissapointing for me and especially my kids. We plan to try again some day. Keep me posted.. Hope this helps.

 

[Nickie616]

Thank you. I am going to give them 2 more days just to be sure I will feel so bad getting rid of them if there was even a chance.

 

[dheltzel]

I would toss them out now, but there is no harm in waiting an extra day or 2. Even with years of hatching experience, sometimes we get nothing. That is part of the process, not every egg hatches and not every chick survives.

[djh1982] - If I was giving advice for a first time hatcher, I would recommend more than 1 breed, and even more than 1 source (if feasible). I have some breeds that hatch near 100%, consistently, others that sometimes fail to hatch any, by getting a mixture of breeds you have more chance of some success and that is important, especially with children. I loaned an incubator to a family last summer and they had nothing hatch. Very disappointing, so I bought a better incubator to ensure a better result the next time and it worked, the kids really took to the chicks and it was a great experience for them (still is, they decided to keep the chicks and build a coop in the back yard).

 

[HatchaBatch]

I would go ahead and toss them because the chances of them hatching are slim to none. You can open them up and see if there was any development . How old were the eggs when you put them in the incubator ?

 

[Nickie616]

I was told they were collected that day. I couldn't be sure though as I purchased them from someone locally on Craigslist.

 

[HatchaBatch]

Seems like a low hatch rate . How many eggs did you have all together?

 

[Nickie616]

15, but only 11 went into lockdown. The other 4 had nothing growing in them. Some of the 11 were too dark to tell so those went in lockdown.

 

[HatchaBatch]

What I would do is open them up and see if there was any development . Were you opening the incubator while they were hatching ? Did you have any problems with temp or humidity ?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Hey there. Congrats on the hatchers!!! It really stinks not knowing what to do with the non hatchers. I feel like you do. I hate the thought of thowing out or cracking open an egg with a still live chick in it. I don't believe that life after a certain day isn't worth hatching. I had a real bad first hatch (because of a faulty thermometer) and my first hatcher hatched day 24 and the second hatched day 25. THe day 25 hatcher was really weak and didn't make it. My day 24 hatcher is a big fat roo...ok cockerel if you want to gettechnically.....lol He's 6 months old.

Generally I have found from all the intell I've gathered (

) is if you haven't had a hatcher, there is always the chance that your hatch will start later maybe even on day 23/24. Usually these hatches yield very few chicks because of the circumstances causing them to be delayed. However, the majority (and this doesn't mean there is no hope,) that if you've had a started hatch and still have eggs unhatched 24-48 hours later that it is a low probability that anymore will hatch that late.

Like I said, I am with you on not throwing any chicks out regardless of delay, (though, delayed chicks ofter have unseen problems that do not show themselves till later), so, my two cents when this question is asked is usually this: candle and check if there are any internal pips or movement. I know you said that a lot of yours were too dark to see. Can you see into the air cell to detect if any beaks are protruding into them? If not and no movement, then I would water candle to see if there are any movements w/in. If not, I would go ahead and do the eggtopsies. I know it is sometimes hard to eggtopsy, it's definitely sad, but it is a very informative process and you can learn so much with a good guide as to what ou are seeing. (there are eggtopsy threads,) and usually if you ask on here, or add pics (if adding pics it's best to state in teh thread's title that graphic piccs were added.) and usually members are willing to help with what they can.