Were these shipped?
With shipped eggs I do not turn them for the first 2-3 days.
With shipped eggs I do not turn them for the first 2-3 days.
Dead in egg update second hatch 100% update on pg 3
- Thread starter SimplySplendidSilkies
- Start date
I had this same sort of thing happen with two out of five of my shipped silkie eggs - fully developed chicks dead in the shell, never pipped, didn't look like they even tried. However, these eggs were incubated by a broody hen. She hatched three healthy chicks. I read that the air cells may have been weakened because of shipping allowing the chicks to grow too large and therefore unable to maneuver within the egg. This may not be at all relevant to your situation, but I thought I'd share my experience in case it helps somehow.
For me personally, i was having many of the same issues as you. My chicks were too wet because I was keeping my humidity at 50 % during incubation. They drowned. I read the post on here about dry incubation and decided to try it. My last incubation I literally had 2/11 live chicks hatch with the higher humidity.
I set up my incubator with no water at all...put in 10 eggs (some of which had been refridgerated for 2+ weeks) and let 'er go. I will admit I forgot to turn once or twice, someone unplugged my bator on day 17 for hours till it dropped to 70 degrees, and I figured hope was lost. On day 18 I added water to all reservoirs...on day 21 I heard peeping! Being unable to restrain myself, after the first two had pipped for 24 hours with no progress, I decided to "help" (by this point I had removed a total of 3 during incubation for blood rings, etc so I was down to 7 total) and will admit that I believe I killed the two because they were still moving when I "helped" and they bled too much and both died. I was down to 5 with no pips yet so I added a wet washcloth and restrained myself. Hit or miss, my help was done. I now have 5 GORGEOUS pure bred gold laced cochins born from my own girls/boy that are zipping around my brooder as I speak.
I didn't even use a humidity meter. Figured it was one less thing to worry about. Just kept temp as good as I could and added water at the end. My hatch rate went from 2/11 to 5/10 but I really think if the eggs had been fresher the other 3 pulled early may have made it and the two I helped weren't my incubator's fault either so I very well could have had a higher rate if I had just quit trying to interfere and used fresher eggs.
Don't give up! I was ready to as well but now I have renewed hope! I turned around a day or two after my last hatch, cleaned out the bator (I only have 1) and set 15 eggs yesterday. ......I set two more today....but one day probably won't hurt....
I set up my incubator with no water at all...put in 10 eggs (some of which had been refridgerated for 2+ weeks) and let 'er go. I will admit I forgot to turn once or twice, someone unplugged my bator on day 17 for hours till it dropped to 70 degrees, and I figured hope was lost. On day 18 I added water to all reservoirs...on day 21 I heard peeping! Being unable to restrain myself, after the first two had pipped for 24 hours with no progress, I decided to "help" (by this point I had removed a total of 3 during incubation for blood rings, etc so I was down to 7 total) and will admit that I believe I killed the two because they were still moving when I "helped" and they bled too much and both died. I was down to 5 with no pips yet so I added a wet washcloth and restrained myself. Hit or miss, my help was done. I now have 5 GORGEOUS pure bred gold laced cochins born from my own girls/boy that are zipping around my brooder as I speak.
I didn't even use a humidity meter. Figured it was one less thing to worry about. Just kept temp as good as I could and added water at the end. My hatch rate went from 2/11 to 5/10 but I really think if the eggs had been fresher the other 3 pulled early may have made it and the two I helped weren't my incubator's fault either so I very well could have had a higher rate if I had just quit trying to interfere and used fresher eggs.
Don't give up! I was ready to as well but now I have renewed hope! I turned around a day or two after my last hatch, cleaned out the bator (I only have 1) and set 15 eggs yesterday. ......I set two more today....but one day probably won't hurt....
- Thread starter
- #14
No these were my own eggs just the first ones laid by almost 8 mth old pullets. I will know more the 18th of December I guess. I will continue along with the eggs still left in the incubator but will drop humidity back down to 35% I do think my problem lies with the humidity or the fact that these are young pullets laying the eggs. Lock down on my next 10 will be on the 26th. Letisha Morehouse on facebook I plan to upload pics here pretty soon if anyone care to take a look there are lots.
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- Thread starter
- #15
The pics are up but did make it private so you will have to add me if you would like to take a look I do not want the kids on my facebook getting upset. I will load some of the pics here as well!
- Thread starter
- #16
Ok different eggs just trying to show what I am talking about.
This one show just how wet they were. This was also one of the smallers eggs that had the small chicks inside which were developed see the las pic for the chick.
This is one of the normal size chicks where the egg sac was almost fully absorbed
does not look like it tried to pip
Small chick from small egg!
This is the one that pipped! I do not think this one was shrink wrapped it may look that way from the pic but the membrane was not dry and was easy for me to gently pull off. I really took my time with this one.
This one show just how wet they were. This was also one of the smallers eggs that had the small chicks inside which were developed see the las pic for the chick.
This is one of the normal size chicks where the egg sac was almost fully absorbed
does not look like it tried to pip
Small chick from small egg!
This is the one that pipped! I do not think this one was shrink wrapped it may look that way from the pic but the membrane was not dry and was easy for me to gently pull off. I really took my time with this one.
Everyone will have different outcomes, you will have to adjust many factors for your particular area, but egg quality makes THE difference. This summer my daughter and I worked from a 53% hatch rate to an average 93% hatch rate with varying egg quality. We didn't count yolkers, but we did count quitters in our percentages. My daughter had 3 100% batches, all with eggs from mixed farms known locally for quality, and 2 with turken eggs mixed in (all turkens hatched 1 day before the chickens in all instances) all sets had no more than 16 and no less than 10 eggs. We incubated them in an original Hovabator from the '80s, turning only 3 times per day, by hand. (We did do one small set of 6 that we only turned 2 times a day, by mistake, and hatched 100%)
The winning combination from the best sets; Humidity was maintained at 45-55 and it did fluctuate, we candle at 10 &18 days, humidity 45-55 in lockdown and 70-75% after 1st crack. we didn't need to add water after lockdown most sets as the hatching eggs bumped it up a ton. The absolute coolest and best thing we did, and my wife was the 1st to do it, was to take eggs left 1 day after the majority hatch and just crack 'em open. Many times we had 2 or 3 that just would not try. If you candle before lockdown then all viable eggs going into lockdown should hatch. "Helping" a few out made the difference and in all cases these chicks survived, and one became our pet, Gertrude. What we did was take a pencil and lightly tap around the egg where they would normally cut...wait an hour or so...and if the chick didn't try to push out, we started peeling back little by little...the egg will bleed, stop pulling back when bleeding starts...and unlike me, don't freak out. If you go slow...like 4-5 hours in Gertrude's case, you can little by little hatch them.
Sounds oversimplified, but we did it all summer and found that the less you do, the better. Temps and humidity fluctuate naturally, and they do in the incubator, so don't waste time trying to maintain constants. For our best success we obtained quality eggs no more than 7 days old, set the eggs, maintain a range of temps and humidity that worked for our area, didn't "over" turn them, and helped them if they needed it.
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The winning combination from the best sets; Humidity was maintained at 45-55 and it did fluctuate, we candle at 10 &18 days, humidity 45-55 in lockdown and 70-75% after 1st crack. we didn't need to add water after lockdown most sets as the hatching eggs bumped it up a ton. The absolute coolest and best thing we did, and my wife was the 1st to do it, was to take eggs left 1 day after the majority hatch and just crack 'em open. Many times we had 2 or 3 that just would not try. If you candle before lockdown then all viable eggs going into lockdown should hatch. "Helping" a few out made the difference and in all cases these chicks survived, and one became our pet, Gertrude. What we did was take a pencil and lightly tap around the egg where they would normally cut...wait an hour or so...and if the chick didn't try to push out, we started peeling back little by little...the egg will bleed, stop pulling back when bleeding starts...and unlike me, don't freak out. If you go slow...like 4-5 hours in Gertrude's case, you can little by little hatch them.
Sounds oversimplified, but we did it all summer and found that the less you do, the better. Temps and humidity fluctuate naturally, and they do in the incubator, so don't waste time trying to maintain constants. For our best success we obtained quality eggs no more than 7 days old, set the eggs, maintain a range of temps and humidity that worked for our area, didn't "over" turn them, and helped them if they needed it.
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- Thread starter
- #18
Just an update on the hatch going on now.
So this is my second go at hatching my own eggs and...........................I have 5 babies out 4 more pipped and one that has done nothing. I did do a dry hatch but these eggs were in the same incubator the same hatcher as the 7 that all died in the shell. I have a full incubator (not hatcher) still going under the same conditions 35% humidity 99.5- 100.0 temps. and will be moving 7 eggs over in a couple of days. Temp in the hatcher has stayed between 99.5 and 100.0 the humidity has been anywhere from 65 to as high as 80 while active hatching going on, but is staying right at 70ish when it settles back down after the chick has been out for 10 mins or so. These results lead me to believe it was the eggs and not me for the most part, but will make that decision after this hatch is done. Right now I am at 50% hatch rate which is 50% higher than the last time. I have only ever pulled one of my own eggs from the incubator, and that was due to a blood ring at day 10. I have the brooder set up and ready. I must admit I did not do that till this morning, because as the cliche goes, "I didn't count my chickens before they hatch!" I do think I have been converted to a dry hatcher and hope to continue to get better results with more practice.
So this is my second go at hatching my own eggs and...........................I have 5 babies out 4 more pipped and one that has done nothing. I did do a dry hatch but these eggs were in the same incubator the same hatcher as the 7 that all died in the shell. I have a full incubator (not hatcher) still going under the same conditions 35% humidity 99.5- 100.0 temps. and will be moving 7 eggs over in a couple of days. Temp in the hatcher has stayed between 99.5 and 100.0 the humidity has been anywhere from 65 to as high as 80 while active hatching going on, but is staying right at 70ish when it settles back down after the chick has been out for 10 mins or so. These results lead me to believe it was the eggs and not me for the most part, but will make that decision after this hatch is done. Right now I am at 50% hatch rate which is 50% higher than the last time. I have only ever pulled one of my own eggs from the incubator, and that was due to a blood ring at day 10. I have the brooder set up and ready. I must admit I did not do that till this morning, because as the cliche goes, "I didn't count my chickens before they hatch!" I do think I have been converted to a dry hatcher and hope to continue to get better results with more practice.
- Thread starter
- #19
Holly Molly I had 100% hatch out of the next batch which were set a week later.
10 went in and 10 came out.
Is there some type of 100% hatch club? I can not believe it. From 0% to 100% It may have just been my lucky day, but I do not think it was anything I did in the incubator that caused the frist 7 eggs not to hatch. They were in the same incubator and hatcher as the eggs that hatched out at 100%. Wow I am pretty pleased with these results. I did have one foe toe huge vaulted baby hatch so I will be vent marking soon. I have culled out the cockerel the babies are from already but want to make sure that a pullet is not throwing 4 toes. I will know more in 3 days as I am moving 7 more over tonight. I do hope for the same results as this hatch.
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