Hatching shipped eggs, some with bad air cells.

[DemeterAD9]

Well I'm ~5-6 days away from welcoming new chicks to the world for the first time. I've always wanted to hatch eggs and finally after slowly getting the family warmed up to the idea of keeping chicken for two years it's happening! I think the main trigger was when some trashy person dumped a flock of 9 birds down our road in the parking area of state land. I wanted to keep those birds soooo bad but we did not have the facilities at the time. Animal control helped round them up and hopefully someone adopted the flock.

This will be a thread to help me keep track of what's going on, and perhaps help others who have saddled air cells in their eggs. I've no idea what will happen but pretty soon we'll all know. So here's the whole process.

I purchased some hatching eggs off ebay from two sellers. One was a barnyard assortment of 12+1, these eggs were marked with and X. The second batch was 12+4 Ameraucana/Easter egger and either black, gold, or blue marans, 4 eggs are marans (all marked with O). 29 total and the incubator is said to only hold 24 so I talked to a friend and luckily she has a broody hen. 5 eggs when to her (one O and 4X) then the rest were set on March 7. Some of the eggs were a bit bigger than I expected so 4 had to be stacked on top of the others, I wasn't going to make another trip to give them to the broody hen.

The X's arrived on a Wednesday (shipped Mon) and the O's on Thursday (shipped Sat). I know I am supposed to let them settle for 12-24hrs, and the X's did but I'm trying to time the hatching for my 2 days off so I only waited about 8hrs for the O's and set them all together that Thursday evening. I candled all the eggs to check for cracks and noticed a couple had completely free floating air bubbles, figured they were a lost cause but put them in anyways. All the X's seemed in great shape while the O's were the ones to have air cell issues.

This is the incubator I bought: https://www.ebay.com/itm/196192242403
Temp is ~100F, the incubator says 37.2C but my thermometers say otherwise. Humidity is set to about 55%

Candled on 3/13 and removed 4 O's, one of which had developed some but died (read line of death). Most others looked to be doing well, some I cannot see through. One of the O's that was developing has a free floating air cell, the bubble moves every which way as I turn the egg. I propped this one up in a dish with paper towel fat end up and I've been tilting it side to side several times a day. Out of the eggs under the broody hen, I am told at least one, maybe 2 are developing.

Candled all again 3/20 and took out another 4 O's and 1 X, two of the O's did have some development. This is when I noticed the saddled air cells in a handful, mostly the O's. In most the eggs I cannot see much other than the dark shadow of the chick and the growing air cell. The egg with the completely detached air cell is still going strong too.

There are 15 eggs left in the incubator, 8 X's and 7 O's (luckily 3 maran eggs look to be good). I've been checking the detached air cell egg daily and it's still going! The air cell may have reattached, it looks to be of a normal round shape but I'm keeping it fat end up. I plan to put all eggs with odd air cells fat end up in a cut down egg carton in an attempt to help them hatch better. Monday they go into lockdown, they should start hatching Friday March 29 give or take a day. I'm making a guess that 10 will hatch.

 

[Debbie292d]

Sounds like yours are doing good!

I've shipped in a few different batches from breeders and shipped off a few as well. I don't pay much attention to air cells as some of the strangest ones will hatch. USPS had been horrible though this year as generally 75% of shipped eggs will hatch, and this year, 25%. Same with those shipped out.

It appears your percentage is going to be awesome!

 

[DemeterAD9]

Just finished setting them up for lockdown. I may be a day early if you really have to go by the first day as day 0, but I don't think it will make much difference, or at least I hope not. Humidity is 70%, I'm trying to keep it stable but once the tray runs out of water it drops so fast. Would be easier if I could see the water level from the outside.

Any eggs that I was able to see veins in a couple days ago are completely dark now, only thing I can see is a bit of movement and the air cell (some look pretty big which has me worried). Two of the brown eggs look kind of iffy but I'm leaving them just in case.

All eggs in the carton are ones will weird air cells. The smallest egg with the red arrow is the one with the detached air cell. It was moving all around inside the egg and I'd say the air cell takes up about 1/3 of the egg, which seems normal. From my reading it sounds like it's better to have too big of an air cell than too small, but then again most the X eggs (circle in green) have proportionally smaller air cells.

Now the real trick will be keeping track of who comes out of which egg when they start hatching. Hopefully I will be home when it's all going down. Now I'm wishing I had numbered them all. Guess I still can, might do that now and keep it written down in my notes.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Keeping a close eye on the humidity, have an alarm set halfway through the night to top up the water. Two, maybe even all 3 of the green ones are rocking like crazy, the speckled one in particular. I also labeled them to help keep track. Numbers would of been easier but symbols seem more fun.

My perfectly planned hatch date has been ruined though. I set the eggs on a Thursday, so they should hatch on Thur/Fri which are my days off. Got a call yesterday that a coworker quit w/o even giving us a week to find someone new. Honestly we knew it was coming but doing it just before a holiday, when we had already agreed on and planned to switch some shifts around so I and others can go to their Easter gatherings? Now I have to work 9hrs Thursday morning and likely miss some hatching action.

 

[DemeterAD9]

It's currently 12:20am and I'm seeing some action, so glad I checked as the first egg to pip (red ) did so on the wrong end and was sitting in the egg carton, it is now sitting side ways so it can hopefully zip easier. The detached air cell egg (red ) has internally pipped and it made the cutest little peep when I candled it. Of the other eggs I candled there may be one more that has internally pipped but I can't say for sure as I didn't check them all.

Here's to hoping I can get at least a couple hours of sleep before work tomorrow, I expect to see a couple more pips in the morning and perhaps a couple chicks when I get home in the afternoon. The brooder is already set up.

 

[DemeterAD9]

2 look to be internally pipped, red still talking, I worry a bit for this one as the air/chick ratio in the egg was ~1/3 so I expect it to be a tiny chick. I may add a safety hole tomorrow if there is still no progress and the chick is less talkative.

4 have external pips

1. Red -wrong end, no progress from last night, chirping and wobbling in response to me
2. Green -middle pip, goo made it get stuck to the egg carton so moved to sit sideways, chirping some
3. Green - right end, just started to pip
4. Green - wrong end, beak sticking out some, chirping and "chewing"

Edit: 5 have external pips, red just got it done on the right end and is making noise!

Edit #2: make that 6 as green just pipped (on right end)

 

[DemeterAD9]

#7- green - just pipped, right end

 

[DemeterAD9]

They're hatching!

So far in order:

1. Green - black with white throat, black feet
2. Green - black with yellow wing tips and throat, eye ticks, black feet, some fuzz on feet
3. Red - Light yellow with grey back, white feet
4. Green - black/brown/chipmunk, black feet, bled while hatching
5. Red -Yellow with grey back, white feet.

 

[DemeterAD9]

2 more hatched
#6 Green - chipmunk color, darker than Green
#7 Green - Black with yellow wing tips, more yellow on face than others.

And Green has pipped at the right end.

Here's some pics of the process, last is what I found this morning. Moved the 6 fluffs into the brooder and left the fresh one. I removed the egg carton too.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Some photos of the chicks. So far only the two light ones have hatched from the O batch. Grey one is red , yellow is red .

Then there's the two that I assumed would be chipmunk striped but as they dried it's clear they are not. Darker one is green and has feathered feet, the red one is green .

Green , this one has a half black beak.

Green is the one with white eye ticks and feathered feet, the other is green who has jut a little white on the throat and is the smallest one so far.

I had to help green as it was stuck in a partial zip and breathing with its mouth open. I only chipped away at the shell and let it kick the bottom half off on its own. I could tell something was off and sure enough once it dried I see that the legs are splayed to the sides. More concerningly it is still mouth breathing and you can hear clicks when it breathes. I'm assuming it won't make it due to the breathing problem but I put a rubber band hobble on it just in case. It can crawl around awkwardly but tires quickly. If it survives the night I'll try feeding it some soaked food in the morning