Eggs - First time.... Well

[SheepyDaz]

Hey there.

I'm new to all this egg incubating stuff so please bare with me.

I started out with some chicken eggs because of my kids. They defied the laws of nature an returned from the park with a pigeon egg. I gave them a massive lecture about how they should have left it, an while I was doing that someone suggested hatching some chicken eggs.

With the kids I got some fertile eggs from a mate who has some chickens. Put them in the incubator.
Checked them around 5-7 days later an all seemed well.

After about 10 days I realised I set the eggs wrong, due to lack of knowledge, so scoured the net for info.
(I had them with small end up in the air.... So they had died.)

I still left them to run the course in the incubator just in case.

So we decided to give it another try, this time I was a bit more prepared, had a lot more knowledge before I even set the eggs.
So I set 4 new eggs back on Sept 29.

5 days had passed, candled them, they were looking really healthy, plenty of veins an I could see a little black dot.
Around 14-15 days had passed, checked them once again.
Black dot got much bigger in size an it was moving around the egg. So there was me real excited like I'm waiting for my first born child again

Thursday just gone an my incubator went bang.
I was trying to fix a pc an plugged it into the same extension as the incubator was plugged in. All of a sudden my Temp gague on the incubator went up from 37 up to 60 an would not budge, the light wouldn't even come on.
I was royally pee'd off an ended up smashing the pc up I was ment to be fixing. Its now in the bedroom in bits on the floor.

In a rush I ran to the nearest pet store to grab a styro foam box, then went to the local home base to grab a dimmer switch an a light for a make shift incubator.

http://postimage.org/image/u07g4wn1n/

One the eggs had been moved over later that evening I candled the eggs to see if I could see any movement etc.. an nothing....
They was stuck in the other incubator switched off for around 2-3 hours while I made the new one an got it up to temp.

This new incubator I made seems to hold the humidity and temps a lot better than the proper one I had...

Problem is they should have hatched yesterday/today.

There's no holes/cracks/movement at all from them.

I have opened the incubator once or twice to replace the water, an I've only just read I shouldn't within the last 3 days of lock down period.

I'm a little worried these chicks wont hatch now! an all was well until that stupid incubator broke....

Any thoughts/ideas as to what i should do?

Many Thanks!

 

[sumi]

Sometimes when the eggs get too cold during some point in the incubation period the development of the embryo slows down, resulting in a late hatch. So hang in there for another day or 3. Hopefully they'll reward your efforts!

 

[SheepyDaz]

From what I'm reading I've seen a lot of people have successful hatches at later dates.

Problem I'm having at the mo is humidity stays around 50-60% cant get it to go higher unless I open box an replace water with hot water.
(Which I now know I'm not ment too)

Also do I just leave them in one position an still not turn them??

 

[CluckyCharms]

Since you have kids, I'm wondering if you have straws too? If not do you have access to the grocery store or a party supply store? That's what I did...I bought a package of straws. I taped 2 together. Now, I just drop the straw down through one of the "air holes" in the top of the bator and use a funnel to pour water down in there. I usually do 2 Tablespoons at a time until the humidity is up where I want it. I use room temperature tap water. No opening of the bator necessary that way =)

Good luck and I pray they hatch for you!!

 

[SheepyDaz]

So approaching day 24, out of the 4 eggs one was bad, nothing had changed since the last time i checked last week.

The bigger egg, is very very black an has an air sack, but cant see any fluid in it.
Another is around 85% black with red veins at the bottom an a little bit of fluid.
An the smaller one is around 65% black with veins at the bottom an fluid.

Do I leave them or pip them?

The bad egg I opened it up to see what it was like, the growth stage was around 9 - 11 days.