First Time Incubating, Down to 2 Eggs

[User48]

I'm down to 2 eggs out of about 10 - well, there were even more originally, but several of them broke on the way. The seller warned me that broken eggs were a bad sign for hatchability, since the eggs endured a rough trip. Unfortunately, they also arrived during what was a heat wave for us, so I'm trying not to let myself get too disappointed about it. I have a good incubator - a Lyon TX6, and I've been ritualistic about turning - even waking up in the middle of the night to turn much of the time. Anyway, bottom line is that these 2 look very good from what I've seen via candling, and I would be grateful for some feedback on whether, at day 13, the chances are reasonably good that they'll actually make it to hatching day. What traditionally are the odds that a well-developed peep at this stage will actually make it.

Many thanks,
Laura

 

[jackiedon]

Laura,

I'm so sorry for you bad luck in eggs. Most of the time for me if they look good at day 13 it's a good chance. But there are factors that can go wrong humidity so I don't know. I'm not an expert in hatching.

Good luck

jackie

 

[User48]

Thank you, Jackie!!

Laura

 

[User48]

No one else can lend any wisdom here?

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

Sorry I can't be much help.
I've never set shipped eggs.
I have shipped eggs that some got broken once (my fault), first time shipping and didn't pack them correctly. The person who hatched them still got a good hatch. The next time I saw her she said she had a ton of baby chicks from my eggs.

I can only tell you what I do.

I wash every egg with warm water only, I never candle my eggs, I make sure the turner is working, or in the one without a turner, I roll the eggs 2 to 4 times a day, monitor temperature (1 at 99.5 and the 1 with the turner at 100), keep the water trays full all the time, and the last few days, I mist the eggs with warm water from a spray bottle I keep in the incubator.
Last year I hatched over 3000 chicks with an average of 89% hatch rate. (It works for me)

I leave all the eggs in the icubator unless something starts oozing out. I've not had a chicken egg explode, but have had duck & goose eggs do that.

I tried to candle when I first started, but my eggs were too dark for me to really see anything except for at day 7, so I quit.

A friend borrowed one of my incubators this summer, and she candled religiously, and she only averaged 48% hatch.
I told her to leave the eggs alone, and she got a 81% hatch from that set of eggs.
I incubated eggs from the same person she got hers from one time and got a 85% hatch.

Jean

 

[User48]

Thanks, Jean. Actually, you were a big help. My instinct initially was just to leave them be, especially because the T6 has an external turner, so there really was no reason for me to open the incubator for any reason other than wanting to candle. My big worry was the exploding egg phenomenon, or the possibility of that, because of posts I read here. It seemed important to determine viability early on so that I could separate the good eggs from the bad. Now that I have a "real" candler, candling my silkie eggs is really easy, but early on I was using a cardboard box and a flashlight & it was hard to see. I wonder if I did some damage then. Next time, thanks to your input, I probably won't candle & just hope that my experience mirrors yours in terms of lack of exploding eggs.

I guess the big answer to, "What are the chances that 2 viable eggs at day 13/now 14 will actually hatch on day21?," is "No one really knows..."

Thanks again,
Laura

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

I'm glad I could help.
I do open the incubator every day to fill the water trays.
I look for any eggs with stuff oozing out of them and remove them.
I try to only keep the door open long enough for me to do what I have to do and get it closed as soon as I can.

My incubators are outside in an unheated and uncooled building. During the winter, I hang a heat lamp near the door of the incubator & only turn it on when I have the door open. I don't know if it really helps, but it makes me feel better.

Jean

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Maybe I can add extra some hatching wisdom I learned this year from first hatches....I needed all the help I could get......

I let the shipped eggs set for 12 to 24 hours before putting them in the bator.....I turned 3 times a day.... morning, noon and night....candled on day 7, 14 and stopped turning on day 18 after I candled one last time......don't give up on day 21...I had a hatch as late as day 24.....it was caused by too low a temp in the bator....

If you have a seeping egg trust me you will know by an odor coming from your bator..I always smelled the bator to see if a funky smell was coming from it...I didn't open my bator to add water for humidity unless I saw the pan low on water and I used an eye dropper to keep my sponges wet thru the holes in the bottom of my bator to help up the humidity the last 3 days to 75%...

My last hatch was down to two shipped eggs and I had both hatch...