I've finally admitted my poor Americauna eggs have been poached.
They were on about day 8 or 9 and the temp was perfect when I left for work that night, as it had been all along. When I came home 12 hours later, it was 106 (forced air incubator). I hurridly got the eggs moved to my other incubator (both are those styrofoam hovabators) with the temp normalized, but it was too late. I watched them for four days lose all their veining into horribly obvious rings of blood top and bottom while the little chicks just sat there not developing any further. My boys and I were so looking forward to these chicks. We are so sad about this.
To top it off, we had another dozen from another set incubating, now on day 17, and it looks like only 2 have developed correctly. No temp spikes on that set, but I candled them last night and they just don't look right. The bottom 1/3rd of all the eggs but 2 have a clear yellowish fluid and the insides look, well, kind of sloshy. I've not seen chicks moving in any of these eggs at any point during this incubation. I've left them all in and will lock them down tomorrow as scheduled since none of them smell or are weeping, but I am not at all hopeful.
Our last incubation with these same incubators went very well with about a 70% hatch rate. I can't understand what has happened with this second set of eggs. On the first one, I never did manage to get the temperature re-regulated--just kept dropping and spiking--so that incubator met the trashcan after I spoke words to it that shouldn't be repeated in the hearing of young children. But the second incubator has held it's temp quite nicely, so I can't fathom why the eggs appear to be doing so poorly.
To top it off, we had another dozen from another set incubating, now on day 17, and it looks like only 2 have developed correctly. No temp spikes on that set, but I candled them last night and they just don't look right. The bottom 1/3rd of all the eggs but 2 have a clear yellowish fluid and the insides look, well, kind of sloshy. I've not seen chicks moving in any of these eggs at any point during this incubation. I've left them all in and will lock them down tomorrow as scheduled since none of them smell or are weeping, but I am not at all hopeful.
Our last incubation with these same incubators went very well with about a 70% hatch rate. I can't understand what has happened with this second set of eggs. On the first one, I never did manage to get the temperature re-regulated--just kept dropping and spiking--so that incubator met the trashcan after I spoke words to it that shouldn't be repeated in the hearing of young children. But the second incubator has held it's temp quite nicely, so I can't fathom why the eggs appear to be doing so poorly.
