First-Time hatcher just set Feb. 13 7:00pm

[SkippyRoo]

I just candled last night, Day 10, and was a little disappointed that i didn't candle sooner.All the embryos were pretty well formed so I really missed seeing the little dark blob with all the veins looking like a spider. i was happy to see big developed blobs that took up about a third or so of the egg.

i also observed the air space and marked it on all the eggs with a pencil. Some of the Red Sussex eggs have irregular shaped air spaces all the others are pretty normal circles to ovals. Any of yours have irregular shaped air spaces? Any significance to this phenomena? only one of the 36 eggs that I set seemed not to develop at the same rate as the others and it had a dark ring around the egg which was one dark vein. the embryo was much smaller so i removed that egg. My EE eggs i couldn't even see anything besides the airspace, the light would not penetrate through those shells for some reason.i think my candler could be a bit weak.

Humidity has varied from 35% down to 20% it has been quite dry here. I have started to humidify our cabin a bit by boiling water and it has raised it back into the 30s. Temperature has been solid between 99 and 100.

 

[comptonsgonecountry]

I candled last night as well. My porous egg looked like it has quit growing but I'll keep it in there until the 14th and re-candle it. It also looked to have a dark ring (I guess this is what they mean by Blood ring?). It looks like I had four un-fertile eggs in there as well. I will re-candle them on the 14th before throwing them out. But I'm happy I have 10/15 growing strong. Seeing that my first hatch was an awful failure. Half the eggs were unfertile and my humidity ran to high and temps to low. It was a learning experience for sure.

As for the air cells, I also marked their out line with a pencil. I like to see that they are loosing enough liquid. I haven't had any irregular air cells but than I incubate mine in egg cartons and they are stored that way before incubation as well. I have seen other people mention having their air cells all over the place and their chicks hatch out just fine. My eggs are all dark and it's hard to see anything but dark masses. I keep an eye on the growth of those masses by marking the eggs and air cells.

Scott, it was great seeing your update. When do you plan on candling again?

 

[thebanthams]

I had one porous egg and had a healthy chickie !!!! as for the blood line no good !! Tossed them away !!

 

[thebanthams]

I agree 50 % is too high , I didnt do well on my first hatching, because if the high humidity.. My chickies did well with low humidity around 20 %

Sounds like a loooooong 21 days to come. Also, 50% humidity during the first 18 days seems high to me. I wish you luck.

 

[thebanthams]

I agree 50 % is too high , I didnt do well on my first hatching, because of the high humidity.. My chickies did well with low humidity around 20 %

Sounds like a loooooong 21 days to come. Also, 50% humidity during the first 18 days seems high to me. I wish you luck.

 

[comptonsgonecountry]

Ok, thank you to thebanthams for telling about your experience with the blood rings. I went to check my incubation log and found that I had 5 eggs that were in question. I opened the bator and pulled the 5 eggs, that I had marked with a question mark, and candled them. There was 2 with the blood ring and 4 that seemed to be duds. I opened all 5 of those eggs to see what was going on. Sure enough, 4 were duds and 2 had blood rings. Out of the 2 with the blood rings, I could see a chick about the size of a pencil eraser dead with no veining. The other 1 didn't have a chick that I could see.

I had to up the temp in the bator by turning the nob since I removed the 5 eggs. Hopefully I can temps stable again. Normally I won't touch the temp nob but will use one of the red caps to bring temps back up. Using one of the caps would bring it up a degree or two but it still was only reading 97 even after this step.