Diagnosing Egg Problems - Warning, Graphic Pictures

[zazouse]

I kept track of what hen layed what eggs and I had 5 eggs that did not hatch because they were in the wrong position, all those eggs came from the same hen, I belive that the shell was so thick that at the 2 week mark of incubation they did not loose the moisture like they should have and that made it so they did not have room to get turned round before hatch time.

 

[casportpony]

Wow, so many things to consider... One thing is certain, I need to take better notes on things like what problem eggs came from what hens and how much weight they lost, etc. Right now I have numbers on the eggs and I know what hens laid most of them, the problem is I forget to write stuff down at hatch time, guess I get too excited, lol.

How do you guys keep track of the details? Excel?

-Kathy

 

[AugeredIn]

We cannot track individual hens. We have three to five hens with each boy. We track the eggs by pen number in a spreadsheet.

We do notice that there are obviously some girls that lay poor eggs. We also notice that there are some hens that lay genetically deficient chicks. We had a midnight hen that laid few eggs. Only about half of the eggs developed and hatched. We lost every chick from that hen at about three months for two straight years. Sent her to a petting zoo.

 

[zazouse]

Yea I was lucky I spent all breeding season finding, monitoring and collecting eggs from each hen so I was able to keep track of what hen layed what.

Petting zoo is a great idea..

 

[MinxFox]

We cannot track individual hens. We have three to five hens with each boy. We track the eggs by pen number in a spreadsheet.

We do notice that there are obviously some girls that lay poor eggs. We also notice that there are some hens that lay genetically deficient chicks. We had a midnight hen that laid few eggs. Only about half of the eggs developed and hatched. We lost every chick from that hen at about three months for two straight years. Sent her to a petting zoo.

This year I got eggs from one peahen that didn't have a thick shell. The shell was like plastic kind of like a reptile egg. Sometimes it was so thin it was see through. I wasn't sure what was going on because the other peahens were laying good eggs (all of them are in the same pen) and Ice even hatched some peachicks so I wondered if whoever was laying bad eggs was competing too much with the others for food. I was wondering if Damsel was laying these eggs but I am not sure. She did end up laying some good eggs so I don't know who it was but I was definitely feeding them a variety of foods from laying pellets, lettuce, fruits, catfish food, and sometimes dried mealworms.

Maybe I was not putting the food out in enough locations. With 9 peafowl in one pen I have found a good system for placing the food all over so that everyone has their own specific area to eat at and I distance the food far enough that one bird cannot scare others off of a lot of the food. I also have a board I keep on the ground now that I sprinkle food across so that several peafowl have room to eat off of it.

 

[casportpony]

It's day 27 for the next three eggs that all looked like they were trying to pip internally yesterday, so I took them from the hen and stuck them in the incubator with the humidity set to max. This morning the hadn't pipped internally, so I took a peek and all three were shrink-wrapped and not able to pip.

Here are two that i broke the membrane on.
#79


#78


Here is one before I broke the membrane
#80

This is the above egg after breaking and moistening the membrane.



Here are all three with their beaks out and moistened membranes back in the incubator


-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

So depressing... 79 and 80 died and 81 doesn't look like it's going to make it.

78 is doing okay, but looks very weak.

This is #81 with it's foot over it's head. This one lost tons of weight, almost 19% I think.



-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Egg #81 weighed 94 grams when set, 75 grams on day 27 and the chick weighed 56 grams when it died.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Here is egg #78 (chick #31), it's my first with leg issues. Four eggs from three different laying hens, all incubated under the same broody, but only one viable chick with leg problems. Definitely not the way I wanted to end the 2013 season!







Here he is a couple of days later with some buddies



-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Here is one that died inthe shell before it absorbed it's yolk.


Here is one that that absorbed it's yolk.


-Kathy