Help! Eggs are overdue

[LittleCottageChick]

Hello! It’s a long one so buckle up.

My husband and I are hobby chicken owners, we have a small flock and one of our chesire blues suddenly went very bloody (rare, I know)!

A friend had fertile cream crested legbar eggs so we set 5 under her (she has since laid 3 of her own which we have left her with).

On day 17 we noticed ‘broody hen’ was off her nest and laid on the grass. We brought her away and quickly noticed she was riddled with red mite (something we now know to look out for in broody hens)

We quickly incubated the eggs she had been sat on and despite our best efforts we sadly lost broody hen at 2.15am the next morning. Note: we have moved the rest of our flock to temporary accommodation, treated them and their coop so we have the mite situation in hand.

The eggs in the incubator aren’t doing anything.. we would be on day 24 now. We have increased humidity and the temperature is great. On candling, it looks like we have just one viable chick with strong veins and we can visibly see the chick moving.

My worry is, this baby has not internally pipped and on day 24 I am worried.

What can we do, if anything? Or is it a case of sitting on our hands and waiting. I attach a photo of the egg with a baby in, though it’s not the best as it turns out photographing candles eggs is one heck of an art!

Thanks so much if you read all of this. Please, no judgement, we are trying our best.

 

[Huntmaster]

Hello! It’s a long one so buckle up.

My husband and I are hobby chicken owners, we have a small flock and one of our chesire blues suddenly went very bloody (rare, I know)!

A friend had fertile cream crested legbar eggs so we set 5 under her (she has since laid 3 of her own which we have left her with).

On day 17 we noticed ‘broody hen’ was off her nest and laid on the grass. We brought her away and quickly noticed she was riddled with red mite (something we now know to look out for in broody hens)

We quickly incubated the eggs she had been sat on and despite our best efforts we sadly lost broody hen at 2.15am the next morning. Note: we have moved the rest of our flock to temporary accommodation, treated them and their coop so we have the mite situation in hand.

The eggs in the incubator aren’t doing anything.. we would be on day 24 now. We have increased humidity and the temperature is great. On candling, it looks like we have just one viable chick with strong veins and we can visibly see the chick moving.

My worry is, this baby has not internally pipped and on day 24 I am worried.

What can we do, if anything? Or is it a case of sitting on our hands and waiting. I attach a photo of the egg with a baby in, though it’s not the best as it turns out photographing candles eggs is one heck of an art!

Thanks so much if you read all of this. Please, no judgement, we are trying our best.

We

Sorry to hear all your troubles if that is your egg in pic that is on day 24, it is very underdeveloped and doesn't look right from picture and not likely it will be a successful hatch. If all your eggs look like this at day 24 of incubation it doesn't look good for any hatching.

 

[LittleCottageChick]

Sorry to hear all your troubles if that is your egg in pic that is on day 24, it is very underdeveloped and doesn't look right from picture and not likely it will be a successful hatch. If all your eggs look like this at day 24 of incubation it doesn't look good for any hatching.

Thank you for taking the time to reply! I too thought the chick looked underveloped, do I just allow nature to take its course and presume baby will die naturally inside the egg? She is very actively moving at the moment

 

[Altairsky]

If it's moving then it's alive. You probably counted the day wrong. Keep it in the incubator.

 

[LittleCottageChick]

UPDATE! I managed to get a clearer video of the egg in question, remember I said she had since laid 3 of her own? I now think this is one of her own thus behind on my original dates.

Sadly, it won’t let me attach the video for your eggs-perts to see but I plan to give this one another week or so

 

[LittleCottageChick]

UPDATE: we have disposed of all eggs except the one photographed. The egg is still alive and well and is now rocking

 

[Debbie292d]

Sadly, it won’t let me attach the video for your eggs-perts to see but I plan to give this one another week or so

To post videos here, we have to post them elsewhere, like YouTube, then make it shareable and copy the link back to here.

Hopefully, you'll have a fuzzy chick soon!

 

[LittleCottageChick]

Hello again hatching advice needed…. Timeline of events below:
• 1st May sat broody hen on 5 eggs
• Hen died 18th May due to red mite infestation - had laid 3 own eggs by this time but I don’t know when
• Decided no life in eggs and disposed all except 1 with a visible chick
• Now 1st June and egg has been wobbling and rocking since 29th May but has not pipped and no cheeping.

Do these timelines make sense and if so when could this chick hatch? We are starting to feel it’s overdue now candled today 1st June