Hatching heritage breeds with Easter Eggers

[muircheartaigh]

Hi all,

I had a customer call me tonight and complain that my eggs were no good. I sold him 10 br and 10 ba eggs and only 8 hatched. I've been trying to wrack my mind around it as my previous hatch had a high success, 85%. I remembered that he hatched with Easter Eggers, which hatch notoriously early. Perhaps, he opened too early and they shrink wrapped? I'm so confused how this happened. Should you hatch early hatching breeds, like the Easter Egger, with later hatching breeds? Looking for answers.

 

[WalnutHill]

I hatch them together. Other than that smaller eggs hatch before big eggs and that I move my lockdown up to the line between day 17 and 18 just to be ready, there is no difference. I also hatch at a temp 1 degree F cooler than incubation temp and up the humidity as close to the first expected pip as I can (by day 19) and don't open the incubator during the hatch unless something truly requires it.

You don't know anything about this individual's past success, incubation conditions, candling results, or anything else. While I sympathize with them, if the eggs developed past 10 days I don't believe anything related to your egg quality or shipping is much of a factor.

If we all ran dataloggers on our incubators and hatchers, it would be a different story.

 

[muircheartaigh]

Why the 10 day mark? I'm going to ask him more questions tomorrow. Namely, did he candle? did he open early? were the chicks fully developed but didn't pip? etc.

Thanks for the information, it is very much appreciated.

 

[WalnutHill]

Well, it's just my opinion/observation, but clear eggs and early deaths happen in the first ten days, after that, most failures are NOT developmental, but are related to incubation conditions.