Eggs in the bator for a week, never developed??

[ssbs]

After my hens had been laying for a week I started collecting eggs.. I collected them for a week and stuck them in the incubator. I gave them 8 days and candled, no veins. So I cracked them open. Nothing.

I checked the fertility of the previously laid eggs and out of 8 seven showed bulls eyes. So with 16 eggs that were put in the incubator why would none of them start developing?

 

[Stellar]

What is your cock to hen ratio? Maybe a cock is not doing his "job"

 

[ssbs]

1:1

 

[Stellar]

Hmmm, give it some time...

 

[Denninmi]

I guess it just takes a while. I was so excited by my first Coturnix that I threw some in the incubator. Out of about a dozen Coturnix eggs, 4 did hatch, but the rest were infertile and showed no development whatsoever upon "eggtopsy." Most of the eggs were pretty small, too, since the birds were only 5 weeks old when they started laying. The chicks that did hatch were tiny, more like the size of button quail than Coturnix, but are healthy and growing.

 

[JJMR794]

Are They Receiving Enough Light? Hens Will Lay (albeit A Much Lesser Rate) Dispite The Low Light, But Roos Will Not Be Fertile Or Mate In Low Light. 14-16/hrs A Day Of Uninterupted Light

 

[ssbs]

Yes. They get day light (almost 12 hours).. And I always keep the christmas lights in their cage plugged up too.. I have noticed that the hens don't like to lay if they went one night without the artificial lights.. So I always keep them on, especially since it had been dark and raining for a week straight (after I collected incubating eggs though).

Is the bulls eye not a sure fire way on checking the fertility of the eggs>

 

[Stellar]

If you see the bullseye, the egg was fertile.

 

[ssbs]

Okay. So why would fertile eggs in a incubator on 99.0-99.8 with 56% humidity never start developing? The oldest eggs that I put in were a week old

 

[Stellar]

Eggs have a 7 day viability, after 7 days, the hatchability goes down even if the egg was fertile. It is best to set eggs up to 5 days rather than a week JMO