Hi all,
We candled the eggs last night, day 10. It looks like we have 11/22 that are going strong! I plan to keep most of the other eggs just to be sure since this is my first time doing a full start to finish incubation. However, I also want to learn as I go. I'm also long-winded when I write so I've highlighted the actual questions in bold for anyone who is not interested in my long-windedness.
Okay, first questions are about the eggs that aren't developing: Many of the non-developing eggs have a sort of "liquidy" substance that floats around inside the egg and only takes up about 1/3 of the space in the egg. I'm assuming these eggs were never fertile and I'm just seeing a yolk that's been cooking for 10 days. I have several like this, so I'd like to remove and crack open 1 or 2 and see what they look like. If I crack them open, do I need to toss the egg or is it safe to cook and feed to the chickens? What about any eggs I remove at day 14 or 17 candling?
I also have an egg that on day 4 of candling was suspected of being a quitter. It had the dark spot, but no veins, and it floated freely around in the shell. Now on day 10, it's pretty much the same. It hasn't grown in size and still no veins. Should I definitely toss this egg so it doesn't go bad/blow up?
Questions about egg weights:
I weighed all my eggs individually. On average they've lost 7.25% which seems slightly high for day 10, but not too far off course. My incubator has been registering around 52%-54% humidity, but a couple times I messed up and it dropped down low for a couple hours. Would you recommend any adjustments to the humidity based on the amount of weight loss?
And lastly, does the weight loss of the egg also play a role in determining if a chick is developing inside an egg? Like would a healthy egg/chick lose more or less weight than an unhealthy one? I have some really spotty eggs I can't see inside of well and and was hoping for a second piece of data to support what I see (or rather don't see) inside. I also was surprised by the variance in weight change between the individual eggs. While the average is 7.25% and most are in that 6-8% range, I have a few outliers. I have one that lost 11% and another that lost 4%. Does that indicate anything?
Thanks for your help!
We candled the eggs last night, day 10. It looks like we have 11/22 that are going strong! I plan to keep most of the other eggs just to be sure since this is my first time doing a full start to finish incubation. However, I also want to learn as I go. I'm also long-winded when I write so I've highlighted the actual questions in bold for anyone who is not interested in my long-windedness.
Okay, first questions are about the eggs that aren't developing: Many of the non-developing eggs have a sort of "liquidy" substance that floats around inside the egg and only takes up about 1/3 of the space in the egg. I'm assuming these eggs were never fertile and I'm just seeing a yolk that's been cooking for 10 days. I have several like this, so I'd like to remove and crack open 1 or 2 and see what they look like. If I crack them open, do I need to toss the egg or is it safe to cook and feed to the chickens? What about any eggs I remove at day 14 or 17 candling?
I also have an egg that on day 4 of candling was suspected of being a quitter. It had the dark spot, but no veins, and it floated freely around in the shell. Now on day 10, it's pretty much the same. It hasn't grown in size and still no veins. Should I definitely toss this egg so it doesn't go bad/blow up?
Questions about egg weights:
I weighed all my eggs individually. On average they've lost 7.25% which seems slightly high for day 10, but not too far off course. My incubator has been registering around 52%-54% humidity, but a couple times I messed up and it dropped down low for a couple hours. Would you recommend any adjustments to the humidity based on the amount of weight loss?
And lastly, does the weight loss of the egg also play a role in determining if a chick is developing inside an egg? Like would a healthy egg/chick lose more or less weight than an unhealthy one? I have some really spotty eggs I can't see inside of well and and was hoping for a second piece of data to support what I see (or rather don't see) inside. I also was surprised by the variance in weight change between the individual eggs. While the average is 7.25% and most are in that 6-8% range, I have a few outliers. I have one that lost 11% and another that lost 4%. Does that indicate anything?
Thanks for your help!
