Day 22 - can I candle the eggs?

[rachelbs]

Hi! I am on day 22 in the incubator with 8 chicken eggs (silverudds and hedemora) and there are no pips! Yesterday I was sure I saw movement in two of them but today it’s just quiet. I tried candling the eggs just now but I’m unsure what to look for. They all seem to have air cells about the same size but only one of the eggs had visible spindly blood vessels (not sure what that’s called). How do I know if the eggs are viable? Is it safe to candle them at this stage once more, and if so, what should I look for?

Thank you!!

 

[igorsMistress]

The eggs should have an air cell at the wide end but the rest should be pretty much a solid dark mass. Here’s a chart, but if you can get some pics to share that would help us help you

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

Did you count the days correctly? That is a common mistake. An egg does not have a day's worth of development when it first goes into the incubator. You say "one" 24 hours later. An easy way to check your counting is the day of the week you put them in the incubator or under a hen is the day of the week the 21 days are up. If you started them on a Thursday, the 21 days are up on a Thursday.

All eggs do not hatch at exactly 21 days. Due to many different things they can hatch as much as 2 full days early or late. Things like heredity, humidity, how and how long they were stored before incubation started, and just differences in individual eggs can make a difference. One common cause is the average incubation temperature. If it is high they can be early, low and they can be late. It took me three times before I got my average incubation temperature right. The presets on the incubators are not always correct.

In my opinion. the more you fool with the eggs during hatch the more opportunity you have to cause harm. I know of nothing you can do at this stage to help them hatch. A lot of people on this forum handle eggs at this stage but my suggestion is to sit on your hands until the end of 23 days before you do anything unless you see something going on inside the incubator that demands your immediate action.

Good luck!

 

[Antiocheggers]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

Did you count the days correctly? That is a common mistake. An egg does not have a day's worth of development when it first goes into the incubator. You say "one" 24 hours later. An easy way to check your counting is the day of the week you put them in the incubator or under a hen is the day of the week the 21 days are up. If you started them on a Thursday, the 21 days are up on a Thursday.

All eggs do not hatch at exactly 21 days. Due to many different things they can hatch as much as 2 full days early or late. Things like heredity, humidity, how and how long they were stored before incubation started, and just differences in individual eggs can make a difference. One common cause is the average incubation temperature. If it is high they can be early, low and they can be late. It took me three times before I got my average incubation temperature right. The presets on the incubators are not always correct.

In my opinion. the more you fool with the eggs during hatch the more opportunity you have to cause harm. I know of nothing you can do at this stage to help them hatch. A lot of people on this forum handle eggs at this stage but my suggestion is to sit on your hands until the end of 23 days before you do anything unless you see something going on inside the incubator that demands your immediate action.

Good luck!

Thank you ! I'm going to sit on my hands lol. We usually buy eggs to hatch Marans, Brahmas but on Oct 31 I placed an egg in our incubator with some Marans eggs. The Marans have hatched and we are still waiting for ours. My husband picked it up today 23 days later and hearded a peeping. I just looked at it and there is a little hole in the side. Do I just sit and wait ? This would be the first chick to be hatched from our chickens so I don't want anything to happen. How long do I wait ? Thank you in advance I can't hardly wait for it to arrive.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sorry, it's been a full day since you posted. If it has not hatched by now I'd probably try to help it. Very carefully take off tiny bits of shell to help it out. The risk is that it has not yet absorbed the blood from the membrane that surrounds the chick so you could nick a blood vessel and it bleed to death if it has not absorbed the blood. So go slow and carefully. If you see any blood stop immediately.

 

[Ilovemychicks08]

Its easy to get worried. Today is day 21 for my hatch and i have had chicks hatching for 2 days so technically started on day 19.
If ir has been over 24 hours since pip. Carefully and slowly help like said above. Wetting the membrane helps to.

 

[Antiocheggers]

Thank you for your reply. It hatched yesterday morning to our excitement but, today it pass away. We had named her Uno for being our first hatch. Have no idea what happen .

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

Thank you for your reply. It hatched yesterday morning to our excitement but, today it pass away. We had named her Uno for being our first hatch. Have no idea what happen . View attachment 3995538

could have been an issue on the inside. some deformity that weakened it enough to cause it trouble hatching? or the death and hatch time could be unrelated.

 

[Ilovemychicks08]

Thank you for your reply. It hatched yesterday morning to our excitement but, today it pass away. We had named her Uno for being our first hatch. Have no idea what happen . View attachment 3995538

Im sorry.
In the chicks hatching a lot a things can go wrong