Day 7 - any hope?

[Aurora21]

I bought 18 hatching eggs and picked up locally. I have been incubating them in my nutureright360 at 99.5 with a dry hatch method ranging humidity from 20-30% validated with a salt calibrated hygrometer. One egg had a crack and was discarded on day 5 and so I candled a few eggs on that day to see if anything was happening and saw nothing. When I opened the cracked egg there were no signs of development at all (no veins/blood etc -- looked like a regular egg), so I was a little more concerned that things weren't progressing. Here we are on day 7 and I candled each egg. I see absolutely no veining or development in any egg. I have included two sample photos below of what I am seeing. I see a yolk that moves when I move the egg. The eggs are very porous and several of them have some other cracking like in the other photo. The seller has encouraged me to continue to have hope and candle again on day 10. There is no smell or other sign that the eggs are going bad. These are buckeye eggs. We are in Ohio - temperatures when these were laid were around 20-40 degrees. The hens/roo did have a coyote scare about a week before I got these eggs which caused them to go on a laying strike. The seller has had successful hatches from these birds recently. What say you BYC people? What do you think?

 

[HollowOfWisps]

Did you let them sit for a day or two on the counter to let them come up to room temperature before putting them in the incubator?

 

[Aurora21]

Did you let them sit for a day or two on the counter to let them come up to room temperature before putting them in the incubator?

Yes - I will add that to the details above. They sat for 24h, pointy side down prior to incubation in the room where they are being incubated which is draft free without windows and maintained at room temperature throughout the day.

 

[Aurora21]

Yes - I will add that to the details above. They sat for 24h, pointy side down prior to incubation in the room where they are being incubated which is draft free without windows and maintained at room temperature throughout the day.

I also am counting days "correctly" ie: started Tuesday night so tonight at 8 pm will technically 7 total days of incubation

 

[HollowOfWisps]

If they were brought up to room temperature, local pickup and you pre-calibrated everything I say that they are duds. If it was me I might be tempted to keep them in there until day 10 just so she can't say that you did something wrong, but even then I don't think you are going to see any change.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

What do you think?

I see NO development either..

We are in Ohio - temperatures when these were laid were around 20-40 degrees.

Could be part of the issue.,, have you cracked one open to see if they're fertile? Did you happen to see or take picture of the blastodisk/blastoderm? Of course understanding that fertile doesn't always mean viable. Do you know how often they collected the eggs at those temps?

The hens/roo did have a coyote scare about a week before I got these eggs which caused them to go on a laying strike. The seller has had successful hatches from these birds recently

Was their recent hatch before or after the laying strike? What is their version of successful.. what was the fertility rate and actual hatch rate?

The seller has encouraged me to continue to have hope and candle again on day 10.

Despite hatching maybe 1000+ chicks.. I'll admit candling isn't my strong point especially for much darker eggs. Lighter eggs, like these.. are usually fairly obvious though as early as day 3-4. While I personally see no point in waiting until day 10 as these are severely underdeveloped if viable at all, I also see no harm.. especially since that is what the seller is requesting/suggesting. Also I do like to candle from the air cell side.. gives me a better clue. At this point I also say duds..

You said humidity has been calibrated (20-30% seems a little low for that color egg but is often where I incubate Marans or Ameraucana eggs).. have you also verified your temperature calibration?

Best wishes and happy hatching!

 

[Aurora21]

I see NO development either..


Could be part of the issue.,, have you cracked one open to see if they're fertile? Did you happen to see or take picture of the blastodisk/blastoderm? Of course understanding that fertile doesn't always mean viable. Do you know how often they collected the eggs at those temps?


Was their recent hatch before or after the laying strike? What is their version of successful.. what was the fertility rate and actual hatch rate?


Despite hatching maybe 1000+ chicks.. I'll admit candling isn't my strong point especially for much darker eggs. Lighter eggs, like these.. are usually fairly obvious though as early as day 3-4. While I personally see no point in waiting until day 10 as these are severely underdeveloped if viable at all, I also see no harm.. especially since that is what the seller is requesting/suggesting. Also I do like to candle from the air cell side.. gives me a better clue. At this point I also say duds..

You said humidity has been calibrated (20-30% seems a little low for that color egg but is often where I incubate Marans or Ameraucana eggs).. have you also verified your temperature calibration?

Best wishes and happy hatching!

The one I had to open because it was it was cracked did not seem to be fertilized, but I'll admit I should have taken a photo because I am not an expert.
Temperature was calibrated on hygrometer.
Seller reports 100% hatch rate.
I'm not sure when her egg collection was in relationship to the laying strike.
I put a picture below that I believe I candled from the other end (pointy end down).
I am incubating at the humidity recommended by the seller (15-30%).
I am also including a picture of the shell color in case anyone is curious.
Thank you for the reply. Trying to talk myself out of driving 2.5 hours each way to Meyer's hatchery to buy myself consolation chicks on hatch day.

 

[Aurora21]

I just wanted to follow-up in case this post is read later that we candled at 10 days and there was still no development. I opened a selection of them and there was no sign of any development that had started. The seller made it right. I made myself feel better by going out and buying some baby chicks

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

Well at least the seller was honest with you about the Coyotes and also gave you info on her best practices... A little sad to fret over something that just should have been breakfast, but better than one of those stories about a baby chick 'not-quite' making it out of the shell alive.

Now.... Where are the pictures of the consolation chicks??? I'll bet their fluffy perfection will make you very happy.

 

[Aurora21]

Here are just a couple, frost white legbars, blue maran and black orpington.