Incubator Humidity for French Black Copper Marans Eggs

[oregonkat]

Hey, thanks! I actually am your neighbor I live in Arkansas, did I out Arizona? my bad haha, but I use a farmer' deluxe 2450 farm innovator incubator, it's nice for what i do. Through the incubation period I kept it at about 35-40% humidity. And the temp at 99.5 as I thought that was about ideal temp. I can see now people are not joking about the difference of hardness of the shell of Marans, and the membranes. I have more eggs I am getting tommorow black copper marans. I am going to try dry incubation, and that is 20% humidity until lockdown and hatching time .. that's the best advice I have seen.

Sorry about the geographical error, my bad. I saw AR and immediately went to Arizona. Anyway, good luck with you next hatch. They are my favorite chicken!

 

[Vegasvampire]

Congratulations on your little ones! Just wanted to add, that there is no need to put "French" in front of the name ...just BCM. : )

One other thing (which is a pretty important thing... depending on if you plan on breeding BCM in the future.). If you are just wanting BCM for pets or dark egg layers only, this won't make any difference... but, if you plan on ever selling birds, then the appearance of a white chick sport in BCM hatching eggs is worrisome. This points that there is a problem in the genetics. (Unless you purposely ordered a White Marans-unrelated to your chicks- otherwise, a sport being thrown is something to look at.).

Wheaten variety Marans being mixed into BCM is a huge husbandry problem in BCM. A white chick is a sign tells a breeder the flock they came from is not a pure or Wheaten tested strain of BCM. It's either a Wheaten split (1/2 BCM and 1/2 Wheaten variety) or a "Recessive White sport."

Both are derived from BCM being mixed with Wheaten Marans sometime in the past. Pure Marans chicks always have black and white penguin bodies- showing a small amount of white on faces. Also, BCM born with pure black faces (no white spots) should also at least be suspect for split genes. There are effective tests that can be done when they are of breeding age.

If the chick is a sport, I would certainly email the breeder with photos so they are aware of the problem. Don't be surprised if they deny that there is a problem, or blow it off as nothing. We once had a top breeder from an expensive show line sold us hatching eggs that threw a yellow shanked chick (there are no yellow shanked Marans.) and the others had missing or double toes- so none can ever be used in a breeding program. He told me that was the "risk" buyers take when buying shipping eggs! Genetic issues shouldn't be a risk- eggs surviving shipping should be the risk. Husbandry should show careful attention.

If you would like more info on how to test mate your youngsters when of breeding age to sort out the pure ones from the split young, let me know.

I highly recommend going to the Black Copper Discussion group, and to FB, Marans Fanciers group, and Marans Central as there is some great information and top breeders there.

Hi I just read your post about test mate the young to find out pure from split.. I am very interested in doing this and have some questions

 

[katiek77]

Hey, thanks! I actually am your neighbor I live in Arkansas, did I out Arizona? my bad haha, but I use a farmer' deluxe 2450 farm innovator incubator, it's nice for what i do. Through the incubation period I kept it at about 35-40% humidity. And the temp at 99.5 as I thought that was about ideal temp. I can see now people are not joking about the difference of hardness of the shell of Marans, and the membranes. I have more eggs I am getting tommorow black copper marans. I am going to try dry incubation, and that is 20% humidity until lockdown and hatching time .. that's the best advice I have seen.

Hello. I am also in Arkansas currently working on a bcm flock.

 

[WthrLady]

Lve my fb/s/blcms. See avatar. I used to breed, hatch, and sell them, but locals prefer 2$ farm store chickens.

Now I let the girls hatch them for me.

 

[connieconnie]

Hi, I'd thought I'd ask on this thread as it seems there are a lot of experts on hatching BCM eggs. I recently put 6 BCM eggs in the incubator with 18 others. I just took them out for candling today (day 6), However 3 of the beautiful chocolate eggs have developed small yellow and clear crystal like hard bumps. I'm guessing this is dried fluid leakage. Does this mean that the eggs have gone bad and won't hatch? Do I have a chance of saving them? Is there anything I can do?

Thank you so much, I really appreciate any help!

 

[connieconnie]

Fascinating! I have not seen this before. Are these the only eggs in the incubator that are doing this? Is there any odor to these eggs? Are the eggs getting misted by water that is hard? When you candle these eggs, can you see hair line fractures or even tiny holes?

Thank you for responding!

Yes these are the only eggs doing this, there are 3 other BCM eggs which aren't doing this (and one of them even had a hairline fracture from the post - which I sealed with wax and it's not doing this). The BCM eggs also arrived with 12 Buff orpington eggs, all which are incubating and developing perfectly.
I cracked one of the problem BCM eggs to see what was going on, and so see if I could potentially rescue the other two. This is what I saw:

I was very careful not to disturb the insides when transferring into the bowl. The yolk was already broken and as you can see little speckles of the yolk in the white. I think the eggs might have been scrambled too much in the post when being delivered to me. But then why are the BO eggs okay?

There was no smell at all. And I think that small blood clot looking thing, is the start of an embryo?

What do you think?

Should I take out the other two from the incubator? I don't think they're infected yet, but I also think they might not hatch if the yolk is scrambled?

When candling, because of the dark shell color, I really couldn't see much. But not veins visible as yet.

 

[connieconnie]

As there are no visible veins developing in that egg, I would say scrambled, sadly. I dont think I would take a chance with any of the leaking eggs. It's not worth risking your whole hatch especially if the Buff's are progressing nicely. Good luck with them.

Thank you so much for the help! I will do that now. So sad, as I was so excited about the BCMs. Hopefully the other 3 will hatch!