Do you crack......

[ukchickengirl]

......open eggs that havent hatched??

i'm in 2 minds as to what to do!! if i open them and see tiny baby chicks think it might put me into more guilt than i already feel for the one i lost

but then at least if theres nothing in there at least i'll know i couldnt have done anything else!! (*artificial insemination?!

*)

What do you all do?!

H x

 

[jackiedon]

I do just so I will know.

jackie

 

[barg]

How late are they?
I'd err on the side of waiting, and waiting, and waiting before I cracked.
I havent ever successfully hatched chicken eggs, I tried when I was a kid, not knowing what the incubation period actully was; Several months later I opend up the empty, dried up, unfertile eggs, that I had been assured were fertile.

On the otherhand, if you can candle them...

I think I'll go look for your other posts and see what I missed

Added: looks like a couple days late.
I would continue to wait, but that's probably because my experience does not even qualify me for noob status on this issue.
But even if I was more experienced, I tend to hold out hope despite all evidence to the contrary. GL

 

[jimnjay]

You can tell by candling if there was development or not. There will be a large air cell and a very dark part that is chick. If you open the eggs you will know at what point they died and that may help if you feel that you could have done something differetly. I don't open undeveloped eggs. I can tell enough from candling to tell approxmately when they stopped growing. If I have one that pips and then never progresses, I do check to see why they did not hatch. Usually it has to do with orientation problems and sometimes I can't tell at all. I have found that some just don't hatch. I am a bit squimish about opening the eggs so I don't. Unless you are really experienced, I am not sure it will help you understand what went wrong. Keep good records of your hatch as to temps when you open it to turn or candle and keep track of any glitch that occurs. Record the size of air cell development and compare to the chart of where it should be. Those things tell you more than looking inside an unhatched egg. JMHO>

 

[redchicken]

ones we had 3 chicks hatch a week later than they were supposed to and from that time till now I wait an extra week

 

[silkiechicken]

I do the candle and then crack technique... but also pay very close attention to when they are supposed to hatch so usually can figure out when they are expected.

 

[PeiTheCelt]

My husband cracked ours earlier than I had wanted to (I would have given them another 2-3 days personally) but as it turned out, they were dead in the shell already when he opened them, so it really wouldn't have made any difference.

It was good to know that they'd made it to full development, it made me feel a little better oddly enough.. If they had died when they were smaller I would have felt like it was something about how we'd incubated them. If they had peeped and then died with no other visible problems I would have felt like it just hadn't been humid enough in the 'bator... But since none of those were the case, I felt "better" because it wasn't something we had done wrong, they just weren't strong enough to even peep out.

But that's just me, you know how youwould feel about things better..