3/31/16 - Hatching eggs arrive. Despite a good packaging job, the USPS managed to crack one of the eggs. One air cell developed into a 'saddle' shape, and at least one more had a detached air cell (carpenter's level bubble). Two of the eggs had very thick cells and I couldn't get a good candle. I set them on a counter for 24 hours to settle down and hopefully repair some of the air cell damage.
4/1/16 - Set upright in the incubator. Egg turner tray removed and the auto turner feature turned off. Made sure the cooling feature was turned off and set the temperature to display Fahrenheit instead of Celsius (being an American - math and all...
4/1/16 - I suspect 2 of the six eggs are bad. The 24+ hours didn't seem to do much of the air cell issues but I still have them in the incubator for now. If they're bad, all is not lost - I ordered 4 eggs and if all goes well, I'll still have 4 fertile eggs. Unfortunate to lose 3 right off the bat (potentially) with the cracked egg + 2 bad air cells but in a cup is half full outlook - those were just the extra insurance eggs. Holding on to optimism for now for the final 4...
4/3/16 - Air cells look a lot better. Still not overly optimistic, but they look better today than they did on Friday. Slow news day otherwise - hopefully a positive report on day 8 candling.
4/5/16 - Candled today and have 3/6 fertile eggs. I still have all 6 in the incubator just in case of human error on the candling. I'll give them until 4/7/16 to show signs of life then remove them. I'll try to get some photos on the fertile eggs soon. Hoping these 3 make it to day 21...
4/8/16 - Candled today and have signs of life in 7/7 eggs. Possibly a quitter in one and still have some detached air cells in a couple of eggs so still hesitant to be overly optimistic about everything making it to a live and successful hatch. Still.... leaving everything in the incubator until 4/15 candling...
4/11/16 - First 'quitter' today. One of the eggs still had a terrible air cell (carpenter's level). Expired embryo inside. Most of the others are looking good, a couple are still questionable. Hoping for success. 11 days to go...
4/14/16 - 5 eggs remaining of the initial 7 (1 cracked in shipping, 1 embryo that stopped developing). 4/5 have very clear signs of life (5/5 really, but one hasn't seemed to have developed in days - still a fraction of the size of the other embryos and is in the 2ng egg that had a ''carpenter's level'' air cell). The 4 large embryos seem to be developing well and air cells seem ok. The 'saddle' cell seems to have corrected. Optimistic for the 4/22 hatch but we'll see how this week goes...
4/21/15 - Tomorrow is the day we find out how things went. I candled the eggs before locking them down and realistically, I think only 2 stand a chance at hatching. 2/4 eggs seemed to stop developing and out of those 2, I was concerned about one of them from day 1 - it's air cell was moving around but I'd thought it had corrected itself. Either it had detached again, or I just didn't see it still moving around (relatively thick shell). However, it had developed quite a bit - it looks similar to the 'Day 12' image on this chart so I'm assuming it stopped developing. The second egg that I fear is lost looks like a similar stage of development as of lockdown - I left them both in the incubator (just in case) and will give them a peak if/when I remove the (hopefully) hatched chicks from the 2 eggs I still have hope for.
In other news -this has been a surprisingly long 3 weeks. Since I've set these eggs, I've received 2 shipments of chicks (a 'barnyard mix' of 2 Olive Eggers, 2 Cream Legbars, 1 Silver Hamburg, & 1 Buff Orpington from My Pet Chicken, and a mixed bantam (leghorn and sumatra bantams from Ideal - unfortunately, they've not thrived and all but 1 leghorn has expired. More on that experience here. I've also placed an order of Barred Rock Bantams from Dick Horstman after having Marek's Disease concerns, that should arrive next week. Last, but not least - we even 'hatched' our newest family member on 4/10 (photo below). So.... here's to winding down a busy April and my first hatching experience. I'll update (hopefully with good news) tomorrow.
4/23/16 - Day late but one chick is out. I'm not optimistic about more making an appearance but leaving everything in the incubator for a day or two more just in case. When I get the chick out tomorrow, I'll do a quick candle if nothing else has progressed between now and then.
4/26/16 - Second chick "hatched" yesterday. It had actually pipped in the wrong end of the egg (saddle shaped air cell) and was positioned awkwardly inside the egg. Eventually, I wound up having to help her out- details here. In addition to hatching issues, she had some funky feet/toes issues and had to spend her first night in splints. I set her under the ecoglow with her hatch mate and went to bed. I had expected a dead chick this morning but surprisingly, she made it (and her feet corrected). Cautiously optimistic of her long term survival, but that's where we are today. Will update with photos later.
