Five late bloomers? What is their chances?

[TillyD]

Had 13 eggs originally. I had a Kebonnix which only holds 12 eggs, so I split them between my Kebonnix and my mom's off brand (the incubator literally came with no instructions and the box was in Chinese) incubators. She took 4 and I took 9. On day 18, I had 8 viable babies with good looking air cells. She had 3 that looked good and one that was boarderline... We locked down on Tuesday. Yesterday, I got up to find my mom's incubator had a humidity of 85!!! I panicked and threw off the cover to find two little babies! Five from my incubator followed over the next 36 hours or so... 12 hours after the last of those hatches, we have 5 more eggs still in the incubators. 3 in mine and 2 in mom's. I do not see any external pips, but again, today is only day 22! Just wondering how likely it is that any of those five hatch now? Is it okay to leave them in for another 48 hours? Should I candle them to check for signs of life?

 

[T-R-O-U-B-L-E]

I leave my eggs in until day 25.

 

[T-R-O-U-B-L-E]

And you can candle. I would.

 

[TillyD]

And you can candle. I would.

On what day? I just checked again. One of my two Olive Eggers may just have barely pipped!!!! Should I wait for that one to hatch before I candle?

 

[T-R-O-U-B-L-E]

On what day? I just checked again. One of my two Olive Eggers may just have barely pipped!!!! Should I wait for that one to hatch before I candle?

Now if you like. It takes 12 - 24 hours of low humidity to dry the membrabe so you can text in the bator and grab the 4 remaining eggs to candle.

 

[T-R-O-U-B-L-E]

Now if you like. It takes 12 - 24 hours of low humidity to dry the membrabe so you can text in the bator and grab the 4 remaining eggs to candle.

One at a time obviously.

 

[tricid]

I just recently learned a lesson in underestimating egg viability/survivability that might be relevant. I don't trust myself to give advice but this event kinda fascinated me.

I had an incubator failure at the start of lock down. They spent 3-4 days in an incubator that was not heating at all. I assumed it was a total loss, zero signs of movement or life when candling, cold to the touch, but out of curiosity I swapped them to a functioning incubator on hatch day (when I noticed) and candled them the next day. Several were alive! Strangest part to me is they started hatching out 3-4 days later, the last one hatching today. A full week+ late.

The bad news was chick survival was low. Out of nearly 30 eggs, half hatched. Not too bad for my luck on mail order eggs really. And then only half of those survived. That was bad.

I usually give up 3ish days after the expected hatch date but I think I'm going to extend that to a week from now on, candling along the way and making judgement calls the best I can.

 

[TillyD]

I just recently learned a lesson in underestimating egg viability/survivability that might be relevant. I don't trust myself to give advice but this event kinda fascinated me.

I had an incubator failure at the start of lock down. They spent 3-4 days in an incubator that was not heating at all. I assumed it was a total loss, zero signs of movement or life when candling, cold to the touch, but out of curiosity I swapped them to a functioning incubator on hatch day (when I noticed) and candled them the next day. Several were alive! Strangest part to me is they started hatching out 3-4 days later, the last one hatching today. A full week+ late.

The bad news was chick survival was low. Out of nearly 30 eggs, half hatched. Not too bad for my luck on mail order eggs really. And then only half of those survived. That was bad.

I usually give up 3ish days after the expected hatch date but I think I'm going to extend that to a week from now on, candling along the way and making judgement calls the best I can.

Interesting! I had 4 from my first ever clutch not hatch. I took then out and candled on day 24. There was one pipped, and had been for nearly 48 hours. No movement or peeping. The second had broken the membrane and never pipped... No movement or sound. The other two were so dark, I couldn't tell... I left them all in for another 24 hours, but nothing... Maybe I'll give them a couple more days this time! I only had a 10/18 hatch rate on that first clutch, but they were eggs gifted to me by someone who bought them and then couldn't incubate them, so they had sat waiting for over 2 weeks, then only 14 were even viable by day 18.... So, 10/14 seems like a high hatch rate for old eggs... We only lost one newborn so far, but those babies are all only 5 or 6 days old... lol. I had already bought my own eggs when I was gifted those 18! So, we had hoped for, at most, 12 chicks, thinking wed get 8 or 10... I now have 16 and 5 still incubating.

 

[TillyD]

One at a time obviously.

Thank you! I didn't realize it took so long to shrink wrap them! I thought it could happen in like half hour... lol. Good to know it's not as rapid as I assumed....

 

[T-R-O-U-B-L-E]

Thank you! I didn't realize it took so long to shrink wrap them! I thought it could happen in like half hour... lol. Good to know it's not as rapid as I assumed....

Depending on conditions they could get shrink wrapped in a little bit shorter amount of time, but not the few seconds it takes to grab an egg out of the bator for sure.