2021:1st Chicken Hatch

[Kholts]

I find some of my blue eggs light up as easily as white/cream eggs and others are as hard to candle (if not harder) than my darkest browns. With the darker blues I can eventually can make out the air cell as it expands and try and use that as a guide but for the most part they are a wait and see.

Good luck with your hatch!

I had 4 or 5 blue eggs & yes this one was just impossible..the others were like candeling white eggs. I figured I’d perhaps see something day 7 candling. Thank you for the help.

Try a candler on one end of the egg and a phone or other LED flashlight on the other end, in a very dark room like a closet. May require an extra set of hands. I can see even in the darkest eggs this way. Agree blue eggs can be as hard to see in as the dark brown ones. Good luck!

Thank you. The room I was in was basically a closet. Next time I’ll get my husband to help with it if I still can’t see anything.

 

[Kholts]

Question: have you guys had issues keeping temp consistent in your incubator?

I’m really not feeling hopeful with this hatch as the temp fluctuates a degree & sometimes more... I have the thermometer that’s built in, & 2 inside the incubator. All show fluctuations of the same degrees.

 

[Kholts]

Well I candle tonight on day 6.

ALOT of the eggs looked like this:

Are these early quitters?

Then I had this one...I’m assuming it’s a blood ring.

I haven’t tossed any eggs just yet....waiting for confirmation on what I’m seeing. I also am getting an actual proper light.

Out if all the 24 eggs I could only confirm 2 actually had veining. Then there were 5 I really couldn’t see in or it was really hard at least.

 

[NatJ]

ALOT of the eggs looked like this:

Are these early quitters?

I'm not that good at candling, but I found it helpful to candle some not-incubated eggs for comparison. If I just grab eggs from the fridge, I KNOW they have no chicks inside.

When I had some eggs I thought might not be fertile, I gave them a few extra days and candled again. Then I cracked one into a bowl and looked at it--with no shell, I could easily see that there was no development at all. I cracked each egg and looked inside before discarding them. If I had found a chick, it would have been too late for that chick, but I would have been able to put the other eggs back under the hen to continue incubating. In my case, all the eggs were infertile, but I did not have enough experience to trust what I thought I was seeing. (My eggs had been incubated for about 10 days by the time I cracked one, and it did NOT stink. I cooked the cracked eggs and fed them to the chickens, because they looked & smelled fine.)

So if no-one is able to tell from your photos, you could crack one of the probably-not-developing eggs and see what's really inside.

 

[Kholts]

Update: Day 14

Only 4 eggs remain. 1 I just can’t see into at all so I have no idea what’s happening in it. The other 3 are dark but I’m not seeing any movement.

All the others were either infertile or early quitters.

I have a feeling I’ll be lucky if I even get 1 to hatch. This was just my incubator trouble shooting hatch sooo needless to say I didn’t expect much anyway.

 

[Kholts]

Update: Day 20/21

Boy was I surprised at 2:00am this morning when I went to go tend to my daughter.

I opened my bedroom door to hear some LOUD cheeping. I literally uttered “Holy S*** Balls” (as previously mentioned I was not holding out much hope for any babies from this batch) as I walked over to the incubator to find a whole baby chick laying there! I let it be & went back to bed hoping it would coax the other egg into hatching.

This morning I got a better look. The one that hatched was from a powder blue egg. The chick looks crested so I’m pretty positive it was the Crested Cream Legbar/blue laced Wyandotte.

The last egg left is green so it’s the EE/Blue Laced Wyandotte & it is pipped through the shell but I don’t hear or see it wiggling. I’ll give it another 24hrs & keep an eye on it. Technically the Chick that hatched is early as day 21 doesn’t start until 7:00pm tonight.

I’ll add pictures once everyone is dry & fluffy!

 

[Kholts]

Well only ended up with 1 chick. I opened the other egg this morning as I realized there actually was no pip. It didn’t even internally pip. Looks like it does before it even got into position.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

You are doing better then me. I had 7 an by day 19 both the remaning ones had died!

 

[Kholts]

Oh no! It’s so discouraging when things like that happen. Like I said previously I wasn’t even really expecting 1. It came as a shock & kinda gave me hope for the second egg. Silly me lol

 

[Trisseh]

Things happen sometimes, especially when conditions are a little off. I had the first duckling from a batch of shipped eggs last year that internally pipped, externally pipped, and then killed itself by turning and blocking its pip instead of zipping.
As you said, this was your troubleshooting hatch so now you know the areas you need to stabilize. I’m glad you got one little peep out of it anyways. do you have any way to obtain a friend or 2 for it?