Well hello everyone. It's been awhile... anyway... I've hatched (loads of times) before so this is not new to me, but this situation is. I just got two sets of eggs One "X" and one "O". "O" Is only on... what day..... 5-6 maybie, but "X" is on at least day 15-16. So they are in my bator safe and sound. But one problem. I don't know the hatch date. I can't even guess. The only thing I have to go off of is candling . And all the "X"s are at different stages So you can see my delema. Borrowing an other incubator is possible but an absolute *LAST* resort. These arn't my eggs, they belong to a friend, whose broody went missing I'm kinnda freaked out at this new "mission" So anyone have any advice for me? Thanks for reading
the only thing IMO u can do is like you said go by candling the eggs. determine if you can how far along they are by candling and then go from there for lockdown. you think a hen would know what eggs need to be turned and what eggs need to be still for 3 days? shed lay a clutch and go by the 21 days then. staggard hatches are just not a good thing to deal with.
I don't know if you have a turner then you don't have to worry about turning the eggs. If you don;t have a turner then I would turn them around 7 am, 3pm and 11pm. Apparently the person you got the eggs from was hand turning them that is why there is an X on one side of the eggs and an O on the other side of the eggs. Always turn the eggs in the same direction so that at 7am all of the X's are up, at 3pm the O's are up and 11pm the X's are up. Then the opposite the next day. Just my opinion. Here are a couple of pictures a friend of mine took to illustrate. Here is a thread with egg candling progression pictures. You may be able to tell approximately how far along the eggs are. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261876
Quote:No one set of the eggs have two "X"s and the set of "O"s have two "O"s they're marked that way.
I would think you would just have to keep turning until you can either see with candling they are ready or you know by the date you put them in the bator.
I had a similar situation with guinea eggs I "liberated" from the hen's nest (since guineas are notoriously poor mothers). I candled until the air cell looked about right and the rest of the egg was uniformly dark (the only visible movement was along the air cell line). I put them into lockdown at that point, and sure enough, they hatched two days later. If you can set up a hatcher out of an old cooler or something, you could use this approach to move the eggs to the hatcher in batches. Even if you have to set up the hatcher as a still air, that would be better than trying to do a split hatch with only the bator.
Another thing, I noticed when I was candling that one of the eggs, it looks like the air cell split and one half is on the side and the other part on the top. A few others have detached air cells and I'm not shure what to do... advice?
