First time hatching eggs!

[Equi_Liz]

I wasn’t going to post until I was confident I didn’t screw everything up with the incubation process! However, I recently started experimenting with some eggs from the neighbors farm because her chickens keep killing the babies . Today is day 18 and the first day of lockdown for us. I started with 24 eggs, 12 were over 10 days old, I wasn’t aware that made a difference in developing until later and went and got 12 more, none of the 10+ day old eggs developed at all. The other 12 all grew but 5 stopped midway through. The hens, roosters and babies all coexist together so I have no clue if any are inbred or not or if that contributes to anything, I did notice that there are a few funky eggs here at least 4 out of 3-5 dozen daily.
I started this experiment because I’m hoping to buy some hatching eggs in the next couple of months so I can start my dream flock! I am going to be getting black copper Marans from a smaller breeder and hopefully some araucana hens.
if anyone has any sort of ideas as well: My duck eggs have not been too successful, the first 3 didn’t develop at all after 2.5 weeks, but they had the pale fertilized spot on the yolk when I cracked them open, every single duck egg has had the fertile spot. The second two are on the right in the picture, from September 23rd and have not developed at all. The other 5 on the left are October 3rd but laid from the 1st-3rd. No signs of development. Praying I get some to grow as I already have interested buyers! Here are pictures of one of the eggs from day 4-9, the embryo just stopped developing on the 28th, there were no temp or humidity changes so I’m not quite sure what happened, a real bummer since I was using the white egg specifically to learn from!

 

[Chickie friend]

What incubator are you using? That can effect your hatch a lot.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Inbreeding isn't as bad as people think, especially for birds. One of my flocks has the rooster related at least 2x to every male. Mostly father and brother to all the hens

 

[Equi_Liz]

What incubator are you using? That can effect your hatch a lot.

I have a heat lamp above a fish tank, I have the bottom and one long side insulated with a brown paper bag, and then a towel that covers all the walls and a plastic wrap type of thing, I really wouldn't know what to call it. It was a cage guard for one of the parrots I rescued but that sits on top and keep the heat and moisture inside. It was more of an experiment honestly. I am looking to make a better one to be able hatch out the hatching eggs I want to order.

 

[Equi_Liz]

Inbreeding isn't as bad as people think, especially for birds. One of my flocks has the rooster related at least 2x to every male. Mostly father and brother to all the hens

Really? My fiance keeps telling me that they will come out disfigured. He is a picky man though. He actually refuses to eat eggs over there because of it and wouldn't eat our own ducks eggs until they laid for a month first because "the first eggs are unstable."
I knew horses could be inbred a teeny bit, most are crossed 4-5 generations back but can be carefully bred back 1-2 generation so I assumed it was the same for most if not all animals.

 

[mcdze]

its more likely your setup working against you if its not totally enclosed, temps could drop off or go up, hard to know where its at .. if the temps are wrong long enough they will die .. if thats magic marker on an egg thats not a good idea either, the solvent in it likely goes straight into the egg ..

 

[Equi_Liz]

its more likely your setup working against you if its not totally enclosed, temps could drop off or go up, hard to know where its at .. if the temps are wrong long enough they will die .. if thats magic marker on an egg thats not a good idea either, the solvent in it likely goes straight into the egg ..

It is completely closed, just not sealed. the temp on the thermometer doesn't change and it reads 110, the chicks seemed to move more and live better with it set like that. I adjusted twice so it read 102 and 100 but that was when some of the chicks stopped developing and they weren't moving as much so I put it back to 110. Our house stays at 66 degrees and I have them in a completely draft free area. I used a sharpie, I can try pencils in the next batch to monitor, I hadn't really considered a sharpie to be toxic if it were on the shell in all honesty.
The 12 old eggs were about 2 weeks old before I incubated them so I wasn't expecting them to hatch but most of the fresh chicken eggs (also 12) grew quite well, besides the 5 that stopped halfway through I think was due to the temperatures.
The duck eggs though aren't growing whatsoever, I am positive that they are fertile as I see the pale spot in each egg that I crack open to eat and my females are being mounted by the male I have with them. My chickens should hatch here tomorrow or so, they are all from the same day and incubation period. It also might be her chickens. out of 150+ eggs that we have let the hens sit on this year, I have monitored them all growing and how often the hens are sitting via cameras (which was 4 hens who only moved to go eat a couple times a day) only two chicks have hatched. Most die at the last week of development and we can't figure out the reason.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Really? My fiance keeps telling me that they will come out disfigured. He is a picky man though. He actually refuses to eat eggs over there because of it and wouldn't eat our own ducks eggs until they laid for a month first because "the first eggs are unstable."
I knew horses could be inbred a teeny bit, most are crossed 4-5 generations back but can be carefully bred back 1-2 generation so I assumed it was the same for most if not all animals.

I love the first eggs. Only ones I go out of my way to eat. No reason for it, I'm not sure why I do it honestly.

And yes. I have a flock that the male would be in every slot on the female's line if they were pedigreed and have not had any problems

 

[Equi_Liz]

I love the first eggs. Only ones I go out of my way to eat. No reason for it, I'm not sure why I do it honestly.

And yes. I have a flock that the male would be in every slot on the female's line if they were pedigreed and have not had any problems

I get super excited and proud of my little mamas out there. I do love that the ducks just pop the eggs anywhere without a care haha, makes me feel like I’m not stealing them from their nests. The chickens fight for their eggs.
That does make me feel better, we had a rooster in and he swore he was inbred because he had 2 extra claws on each foot but we don’t know his history, he was abused and very aggressive once he learned that we wouldn’t hurt him.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Lots of breeds havr polydactylism