Golden pheasant eggs not hatching! Help!

[adshea]

Hello everyone.

I have my first batch of 8 Golden Pheasant eggs in an incubator. I've been turning them twice a day, keeping the humidity around 70% and the temperature at 37.5 and in about 2 hours it's been 25 days and there is still no sign of hatching!! I'm starting to really worry that none of them have made it. They were all showing veins after 7 days and then a black dot. Now I can just see a dark shadow when try and look, sometimes a dark shape (sort of like a head). I stopped turning them after 21 days. So I'm wondering:

1. How long do Golden pheasant eggs take? I've been searching the internet and found everything from 21 - 28 days.
2. Is there any test I can do to find out if there is life in there? Any way to hear a heartbeat or something?
3. When do I give up?

I am so excited to have Golden pheasant chicks and I feel really worried about them. Any help/advice/anecdotes are much appreciated!!!

 

[novanod1966]

i hatched mine with chicken eggs.....99.5 deg. F .... 30-45% humidity for the first 18 days then bumped it up to about 60% for lockdown and hatching. they usually hatched for me around 24 days.

the humidity level sounds high to me.... if it is too high then chicks will pierce the air sac (hit water and drown). i hope this hasnt happened to you, i've had some experience with this hatching pheasants, chickens, quail, ducks, and geese....(

i've heard of breeders doing a "float" test on past due eggs. do a search on that on BYC .... i dont know much about it. i think it tells if eggs are alive or not.

don

 

[De Wet]

i hatched mine with chicken eggs.....99.5 deg. F .... 30-45% humidity for the first 18 days then bumped it up to about 60% for lockdown and hatching. they usually hatched for me around 24 days.

the humidity level sounds high to me.... if it is too high then chicks will pierce the air sac (hit water and drown). i hope this hasnt happened to you, i've had some experience with this hatching pheasants, chickens, quail, ducks, and geese....(

i've heard of breeders doing a "float" test on past due eggs. do a search on that on BYC .... i dont know much about it. i think it tells if eggs are alive or not.

don

I agree 70 % humidity too high i kept mine 40-50 %

 

[adshea]

Thanks guys, the problem is I can't get it lower. It's proving very hard! The humidity in the air is 60% as it is here in NZ and then in the incubator it seems to get a bit higher

None of them hatched, we're going to have a little funeral and bury them all. Maybe they are just too inbred here in NZ too, not sure. We've set 4 more that they laid two days ago and we'll try and keep the humidity as low as possible and the temp at a steady 37 degrees. We'll see if anything comes of it in 3 weeks time.