Candling not so good..

[k625]

I had put my own chicken eggs in my first incubator, and have about 23 I think...My birds are young still, so fertility may not be exact yet. On day 9 I candled and 11 were nothing, and 12 were good. I waited a few extra days so I canlded again on day 11 to make sure they were still the same and they are. So im just kind of shocked that only 12 are good and 11 are not good.

3 of the 11 bad eggs I had stored from a friend in an egg carton, and it was just about at the 2 week mark, so I can see why those are not good, but the others were all fresh from my birds.

Just wanted to get your opinions on this. Thanks so much!

 

[ckhlilfarm]

It is probably because your birds are still young... Or is was early in the season. I ordered bantam cochin eggs to incubate. I recieved 31 and only 10 of them were fertile. I was very disappointed. Then I incubated eggs from my own flock there was 33 eggs and only 24 of them hatched. Happy Hatching!!!

 

[dancingbear]

I'd say that your fertility just isn't very high yet. And the other batch may have been too old. It's best to set them no later than 15 days, hatchability begins to decline around day ten, depending on temp the eggs are held at.

See the sticky on how to tell a fertile egg from a non-fertile, at the top of Egg laying and behaviors. I don't know why that sticky isn't over here in incubating and hatching, but it isn't.

Anyway, then, when you use your eggs in the kitchen, you can examine the yolks when you break them open. That way you'll know when you have good fertility. Then you can set some more, and get a better development rate.

I always check the yolks when I use eggs. I know my birds have good fertility, because I rarely see an infertile egg. Usually only from very young hens or pullets who have just started laying....except this one hen, who must be the fastest hen in the flock. Perhaps I should race her, instead of trying to hatch her eggs.

 

[k625]

Im going to hopefully go with the birds being still young. Today is day 18, so I candled again when i was taking the eggs out of the rocker and out of 22 eggs it looks like 6-7 will poss hatch....that is not good numbers...I have had perfect steady temp at 100 in the hovabator genesis, and kept humidity around 50 and bumped it up today, so who knows lol.

Just keep fingers crossed that at least the 6-7 will hatch