Help, not sure any of these eggs are going to hatch.

[BlueMouse]

I have a dozen eggs in my incubator, they're at day 20 w/no internal pip. Should I just put them on lockdown anyhow and hope for the best? This is my first time incubating, and I really feel like none of my eggs are going to hatch. They're half shipped cream legbar eggs and half of my own Buff Orpington eggs (and I know those are 100% fertile pretty much) I tossed two clears ond day 14, and gave four more to my broody a week ago. The remaining dozen are in the incubator. We had trouble getting our temperatures up for the first two days, and then we had a 12 hour power outtage, but it looked like the eggs were developing, at least at day 14 there were two very obvious clears. It's hard to see much except the air cells even with my really extremely bright flashlight, I think because of the colored shells? Two of the air cells have sort of morphed into a weird saddle shape today, I THINK I see a shadow in another air cell, but other than that... nothing... what should I do?

 

[wanteggs]

What is internal pip?

 

[caitanni]

I am on day 10, I knew one of my eggs was bad from the smell I smelt when I opened the incubator. Found the "smeller" plus 2 clear ones. Removed them, have 8/11 left and all are looking good. I'm using a LED flash light to candle and can see my babies moving. If no bad smell, I'd put them on lock down and wait. Good luck!!!

 

[BlueMouse]

Internal pip is when the chick breaks into the air cell and starts using its lungs. It has to external pip (break the shell) within a certain number of hours (before it uses up the oxygen in the air cell) in order to get acess to fresh air. Then it rests, then it zips the shell and hatches, if all goes well. I kind of think in this case all may NOT be going well.

 

[EmmaJane88]

Shouldn't eggs be put into lockdown on day 18? Xxx

 

[BlueMouse]

according to research there's two schools of thought about that: lockdown at day 18, and lockdown at internal pip. I was advised by some experienced aquaintainces that their hatch rate had improved when they started locking down at internal pip instead of at 18 days, so I decided to try that method.

 

[EmmaJane88]

Interesting! God it's such a gamble trying things out isn't it. I've got an important batch in on day 17- alls well (lost one day 16) but my air cells are looking on the small side- tracked weight and its all in line :-S

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’d definitely lock them down, but I don’t use that internal pip method and I can’t see inside most of my blue-green eggs well enough to even try that method anyway.

You probably already know this but a chicken egg does not necessarily hatch exactly after 21 days of development. There are a lot of things that can affect exactly when they hatch; heredity, humidity, how and how long they were stored before you started, and just difference in the individual eggs. One of the big ones though is average incubating temperature. If the incubator is a bit warm they can be a couple of days early. If it is cool, they might be a few days late. With the problems you had at the start, it wouldn’t surprise me that would delay them a bit.

Then there’s the method of counting the days. Many people get it wrong. There is even a hatching calendar floating around this site that has it wrong. An egg does not have a full day’s development 2 seconds or 2 hours after it goes in the incubator. It takes 24 hours for it to have a day’s worth of development so the day you start them is day 0 with a day’s worth of development being 24 hours later. An easy way to check it is that the day of the week you started them is the day of the week they should hatch. If you start them on Tuesday, they should hatch on Tuesday. But with all the various reasons they might be early or late, if mine hatched on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, I’d consider them right on time. Two days off is not a disaster.

I really don’t see anything in your start-up problems that would cause them to not hatch, just maybe delay them a bit. Those embryos are really tough for the first several days. And the chicks can be pretty tough when it comes time to hatch. I’d give those eggs every chance.

Good luck!

 

[Nina101]

I had 3 eggs in a small rcom incubator and I had one chick hatch early and the other two showed no signs or no pip at day 20 but both did pip midway through day 21 and all three eggs hatched successfully' don't panic yet, you may have late arrivals - some don't pip until 22/23 day in some cases! I now have 5 beautiful chicks only 1 egg didn't hatch good luck!

 

[bobbi-j]

I’d definitely lock them down, but I don’t use that internal pip method and I can’t see inside most of my blue-green eggs well enough to even try that method anyway.

You probably already know this but a chicken egg does not necessarily hatch exactly after 21 days of development. There are a lot of things that can affect exactly when they hatch; heredity, humidity, how and how long they were stored before you started, and just difference in the individual eggs. One of the big ones though is average incubating temperature. If the incubator is a bit warm they can be a couple of days early. If it is cool, they might be a few days late. With the problems you had at the start, it wouldn’t surprise me that would delay them a bit.

Then there’s the method of counting the days. Many people get it wrong. There is even a hatching calendar floating around this site that has it wrong. An egg does not have a full day’s development 2 seconds or 2 hours after it goes in the incubator. It takes 24 hours for it to have a day’s worth of development so the day you start them is day 0 with a day’s worth of development being 24 hours later. An easy way to check it is that the day of the week you started them is the day of the week they should hatch. If you start them on Tuesday, they should hatch on Tuesday. But with all the various reasons they might be early or late, if mine hatched on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, I’d consider them right on time. Two days off is not a disaster.

I really don’t see anything in your start-up problems that would cause them to not hatch, just maybe delay them a bit. Those embryos are really tough for the first several days. And the chicks can be pretty tough when it comes time to hatch. I’d give those eggs every chance.

Good luck!

x2