Chicken egg late hatchers...

[beccleschickenlady]

H there and greetings from sunny Beccles in Suffolk, UK.

I wonder if anyone can help at all? I have 4 Red Dorking eggs in a King Suro incubator. They came in the post and one had a detached air pocket and another didn't develop so these two were discarded. I hand turned the eggs so I know they were turned at the right frequency etc.

I put the eggs into lockdown and upped the humidity to 65% on day 18. The four viable ones are just coming up to day 24 and no hatches or pips. Today I reluctantly opened the incubator and candled them. They all had an air sack which seemed quite large - say 1/4 of the interior of the egg and in the right place. No signs of an internal pip, no movement. I did the water test suggested on this site and they were all low floaters - i.e. viable at full term. Inside the eggs didn't seem entirely dark (of course the air pocket was just light) but there was definitely something in them - I had been candling them as I went along so I know they have been developing.

I have successfully hatched a batch of Gauloise eggs before but that all went to plan. What do you think? Have they died and stopped developing? Should I carry on?

There were some temperature fluctuations in the incubating. I had a laser temperature reader and I noticed that the eggs were not all the same temperature inside. There was about a degree difference.

I started to read the info about assisted hatching, but I don't think the eggs are at that stage. Can they just be very slow developing?

I would be very pleased for any advice you could offer, and thank you in advance,
Lou

 

[EggSighted4Life]

By day 24... for chicken eggs, I don't expect anything to hatch.

I personally would not carry on.

To me the float test just shows how large your air pockets are... but maybe they are supposed to hep you detect movement?

I personally would have sat the one with the detached air pocket, since I got nothing to lose.

Tough decisions.

 

[Jbently28]

Could you get any pics while candling them? I've had a few chicks that have hit a blood vessel while trying to pip and died before hatching. When this happens, you can see little blood spots inside when candling. Or perhaps they were malpositioned and not able to pip at all.