Day 24 and no sign of hatching

[avaughn]

Hi everyone. I have a problem. I have been incubating some black ocelot and black sexlink eggs for 24 days now. My husband and I did a float test yesterday and threw out 10 of our 36 eggs due to them sinking. When he broke them open there were underdeveloped babies in them...still alive!! What happened?? As today is day 24, and there are no signs of hatching in the incubator, how much longer should we wait?

 

[chicmom]

Could you have miscalculated the hatch date? Chicken eggs take 21 days. 24 seems way too long......Were these eggs layed by your own hens or did you buy them from someone? If their development is different, then I wonder if a hen had already started incubating them herself......

But that doesn't explain why you're on day 24 and nothing has hatched. What is your incubator temp? Is it steady and at the correct temperature for hatching?

 

[avaughn]

My husband brought them home from a coworker. The coworker had been collecting them for 2 weeks and saving them for us to incubate. The remaining eggs in the incubator all floated. And when candled some had alot in them and others not much.

 

[avaughn]

Oh and my incubator is just a basic still air bottom of the line Styrofoam incubator from the feed store. The temp is set at 99.5 the only time it drops a little is when I would open it to turn the eggs.

 

[boyswillbeboys]

Still air should have been set higher, at 102, the lower temp would have delayed their development, I'm not sure how much though. Sorry I'm not much help

 

[avaughn]

Well rats. I didn't know that about the temp. I just hatched 4 bronze turkey at the same temp with no problems. I am starting to get a bit discouraged. =(
I'm wondering if the delay is due to the eggs sitting for so long before incubation.

 

[dannyisforreal]

Hatch rates do go down if you wait before you incubate. At most the time of waiting should be 2 weeks. The sooner the better though.