- Feb 14, 2011
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Hello all-- I am new to the forums here but have found a lot of helpful information already!
I also am new to chick incubation. I am a science teacher who recently attempted my first incubation with my students. A nice farmer from nearby gave me a mix of eggs to incubate. I cannot tell you particular breeds except that some of the eggs were Americana. We started incubating 24 eggs about 3 and a half weeks ago. I used a HovaBator Still Air Egg Incubator 1602N with an automatic egg turner and a digital hygrometer/thermometer. I adjusted the temp to within their recommendations-- between 37.5 C and 38.8 C, and it spent most of its time in the 37.8 to 38.5 range. Humidity of 50% was recommended, but they also told just which chambers in the plastic pan to fill with water, and I was unable to get the humidity above 44% or so filling just these-- so it spent much of its time around the mid 30's. I did crank it up around day 16 by overfilling with water, and it was above 50% for all the later days of incubation. I removed the egg turner late-- day 20-- because I missed the part where you were supposed to remove it earlier.
So day 21 came, and no chicks, no peeps, no nothing. I let them continue until today-- day 25-- before giving up. today the students and I cracked the eggs to get some idea of what went wrong. We found about 1/5 of eggs that seemed to have done nothing. Of the rest, about 60% had a tiny embryo present (maybe 1 cm in size); and the others had what seemed to be a well-formed chick with feathers and formed limbs, and significantly diminished yolk. Pictures I've seen make this look like maybe a day 15 or so embryo. However, for all of these embryos, the chicks had huge defects in their abdominal walls where the yolk attaches-- like the equivalent of 1/4 of the tummy wall of the chick missing, and intestines and liver herniating through. Only one fully formed chick did not have this; instead, it had a defect more toward its posterior of the same size, also with herniation through it.
Here's my question: is this abdominal wall defect normal in chick development? I've researched, and all I can find is that chicks have the equivalent of an umbilical cord, through which they pull their remaining yolk at the end of development. I see nothing about large abdominal wall defects.
I also will write to the woman who gave me the eggs to incubate and see if she's noted anything like this in the past.
Thanks in advance for any information you can give me!
Cindy
I also am new to chick incubation. I am a science teacher who recently attempted my first incubation with my students. A nice farmer from nearby gave me a mix of eggs to incubate. I cannot tell you particular breeds except that some of the eggs were Americana. We started incubating 24 eggs about 3 and a half weeks ago. I used a HovaBator Still Air Egg Incubator 1602N with an automatic egg turner and a digital hygrometer/thermometer. I adjusted the temp to within their recommendations-- between 37.5 C and 38.8 C, and it spent most of its time in the 37.8 to 38.5 range. Humidity of 50% was recommended, but they also told just which chambers in the plastic pan to fill with water, and I was unable to get the humidity above 44% or so filling just these-- so it spent much of its time around the mid 30's. I did crank it up around day 16 by overfilling with water, and it was above 50% for all the later days of incubation. I removed the egg turner late-- day 20-- because I missed the part where you were supposed to remove it earlier.
So day 21 came, and no chicks, no peeps, no nothing. I let them continue until today-- day 25-- before giving up. today the students and I cracked the eggs to get some idea of what went wrong. We found about 1/5 of eggs that seemed to have done nothing. Of the rest, about 60% had a tiny embryo present (maybe 1 cm in size); and the others had what seemed to be a well-formed chick with feathers and formed limbs, and significantly diminished yolk. Pictures I've seen make this look like maybe a day 15 or so embryo. However, for all of these embryos, the chicks had huge defects in their abdominal walls where the yolk attaches-- like the equivalent of 1/4 of the tummy wall of the chick missing, and intestines and liver herniating through. Only one fully formed chick did not have this; instead, it had a defect more toward its posterior of the same size, also with herniation through it.
Here's my question: is this abdominal wall defect normal in chick development? I've researched, and all I can find is that chicks have the equivalent of an umbilical cord, through which they pull their remaining yolk at the end of development. I see nothing about large abdominal wall defects.
I also will write to the woman who gave me the eggs to incubate and see if she's noted anything like this in the past.
Thanks in advance for any information you can give me!
Cindy