Egg problem??

[farmerpete]

from Farmerpete. we have 24 yellow buff Orphs. and 24 white leghorns. Only 4 of our buffs get broody and none of the leg horns go broody, so we bought an incubator 2 months ago to put the leghorn eggs in. Everything went well with the hatching of 40 eggs.,so we decided the next batch would be the yellow buff eggs. We put 40 in and now they are starting to hatch, but its taking longer and 4 have already rotted, 5 have hatched , but 2 died while piping. I'm ready to start letting the 4 broody buffs take over. We still have a few eggs on the wire screen, but none have shown signs of piping yet. Our temp. is 99.5-100. Any Ideas as to whats happening??

 

[Up-the-Creek]

Farmerpete it could be a number of issues. Using an incubator sometimes works real well and then sometimes don't.It could be humidity or temps or maybe the eggs were old or chilled at some point, maybe they arent fertilized??? Of course this is only my opinion,... If you have hens that are broody your best bet is to let them do the work. So much simpler for everyone. Good luck and I wish I could be of more help.

 

[farmerpete]

from farmerpete Hi. Up the creek. Thanks for the opinion . We never chill our eggs and we candle them after 7 days in the bator. The 4 broody buffs nest are full of guinea eggs< 22in all> . So, I guess we'll see what happens with both guinea eggs under the buffs, and futher problems with the existing eggs in the bator. Agai, thanks for your reply.