100% Male Hatches?

Have you tried to gently crack the eggs at the end of the day that they hatch to see if there are any little peepers alive in there.
 
CrazyChickLady7, those roosters are gorgeous! Yes, I do crack the eggs open after the hen has abandoned the nest. A year ago, my broody kicked an egg out, to attend to her 3 feisty chicks (2 female, one male), and I picked up the egg and carried it around, and it started to peep... Sadly, it just couldn't get out of the shell, so I took it to an avian expert who got it out of the shell for me for $22.00, but it died a day later-- gender unknown. We think it didn't get enough humidity at a crucial point near the end of hatch. It was sad. After the broody abandoned her eggs to care for my latest little chick, I cracked open the eggs. One had died about Day 7, and a 2d looked to have lived to about Day 13, when the egg was rolled out and cooled for about 3 hours. The membrane was very tough and dry, similar to the membrane you sometimes find around an orange. The third egg might have hatched, had the broody stayed on the nest longer; I'm not sure. It had a whole bunch of runny yolk in it, though, along with the chick. So sad. My friend opened the incubator eggs that didn't hatch (6 out of 7) and they all contained nearly fully formed chicks with a lot of fluid.... Someone suggested too much humidity in the incubator, but he explained how he had corrected for that, and she said that should have taken care of the humidity problem, but, still, they didn't hatch, and we don't know why. He got just the one cockerel, hatched exactly 21 days from the date the eggs were placed in it. He opened the unhatched eggs earlier than I would have-- about 48 hours after the one hatched. I would have waited 72, but he didn't see any movement. My broody abandoned her nest only 48 hours after the one cockerel hatched. I would have liked her to have stayed on the nest a full 72 hours. However, I heard no peeps from the remaining eggs and saw no signs of pipping, so I don't think they would have hatched.
 
The Day 7 chick death was my fault. I had made the mark identifying the egg as one to be hatched, too small, and I hadn't seen it and accidentally gathered it and put it in the fridge. When I realized my mistake, I took it out of the fridge and put it back in the nest, hoping it still might hatch, but its development had been interrupted by the cold fridge. And the other egg that rolled out may have had the same fate-- not enough heat at a crucial stage. However, I don't know what went wrong with Egg 3. It's possible it might have hatched, had she sat on it longer. Actually, I don't know whether the one that was rolled out of the nest was the one with the tough membrane, or the yolky one. But I think it was the tough membrane one.
 
Ya we had put i believe 10 eggs in the incubator last year. 8 ameracauna and 2 cochin crosses.both the cochins hatched but one was clubfoot she's still alive. (the other cochin died last week) and then the reason we put them in the incubator was because my favorite chicken had died that day and we found a clutch of her bright blue eggs. For of my ameracaunas eggs hatched, though 3 were roos. I believe that 3/4 of the unhatched ones were infertile.
 
Eight of the eggs under my friend's broody are the Barred Rock hen's. One egg is from my white egg layer, who is part leghorn. The other 3 are from my youngest hens, I believe. I've never hatched their eggs before. The color combinations will be interesting.
 

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