I didn't know how depressing egg hatching could be!!

[leslieaveritt]

ok- this was my first try- I ordered a doz. Welsummer eggs from W. V. thye sent me 14 eggs. (I'm in NC) built a home made incubator. the eggs arrived 4/1- you know what I was thinkin"!!!!! I was getting pretty discouraged esp. from reading lots of posts about ordering eggs thru mail. so yesterday 2 hatched about 9:30pm and in wee hours another. I have 3 fluffy chicks now in incubator. should I keep trying? Obviously I could not figure out the candling thing being they are brown eggs. I don't see any rocking or hear any peeping coming from any other eggs. but I'm please that my 3 wk. of watching, adjusting temps, and hoping/praying got me some hatches!!! Yippee!!!

 

[brimstone555]

@ GRYEYES, Yep I agree BYC is a Great Place to Learn & share all about Chickens & other birds... People in here have a Wealth of information and everyone is Nice & friendly.. that's why I come back 'everyday'

But It will be a glorious happy day when I set my first eggs and get some to hatch... Good Luck everyone..

 

[mtngrl812]

BYC has been a wealth of information, ideas and support!

Before I even joined I used the info from here to save a little banty roo I have. I just find it sooo frustrating that I have ordered all these different eggs in hopes of having one of each kind only to have something go wrong and not get any hatches. A few years back I found some eggs at a barn and thought it would be fun to try to hatch them. I found 8 chicken eggs and 6 duck eggs. I borrowed an incubator from neighbors that was old and dusty and had traveled many miles moving with the family (an LG as I know now), I had no info on how to hatch except for the pamphlet that was with the bator, only the thermostat that came with it, nothing to read humidity. I had 100% hatch rate!! The duck eggs I found lying around a pond, there was only one duck hen so I have no idea how long they had been sitting around and never realize it could matter. She would lay an egg right out in the open or in the tall grass then never go back to it. The chicken eggs were various ages, someone would sometimes collect eggs on occasion but they could have been days old, in warm temps and no broody hen. I did live in a trailer with a swamp cooler for A/C so that must be where I had the decent humidity from. If I remember correctly I kept the bator covered with a towel so the sunshine from the window wouldn't make it too hot. Go figure

Now I have all this info, a new bator, thermostats, humidity readers, a secluded room, good eggs... everything, and I can't get a good hatch rate!

It is frustrating! I guess I just need to chalk the first one up to 'Beginner's Luck' and quit thinking shipped eggs are gonna be as good. I guess as long as I can spare the money to throw away

I can keep trying. I will also start looking around for other chicken folks in this area. Maybe I can find local eggs of some of the breeds I would like to have.

 

[luvchicks8]

I'm having bad luck also I have 9 muscovy eggs do yesterday nothing it look like alot of fluid moving around when I candled them today. The dad was killed last week

I hate to give up but I think I have to.

 

[al6517]

Quote:
The LG is more than likey the problem, they are notorious for poor hatches and disasters, if you have new egg's on their way is there any way you can order or buy a real incubator before you set those ??. Just not wanting you to fail again.

AL

 

[CrazyChickensEverwhere]

It won't feel like a disappointment once that first egg hatches

 

[mtngrl812]

Quote:
The LG is more than likey the problem, they are notorious for poor hatches and disasters, if you have new egg's on their way is there any way you can order or buy a real incubator before you set those ??. Just not wanting you to fail again.

AL

I have never seen any other incubators for sell in the stores here and I think the LG I bought was the only one they had. I really don't want to spend too much money on this because after I get the few chickens I want I don't think I will be doing much more hatching (HaHa last words right!!) My DH said he didn't mind a farm with chickens, but didn't want a chicken farm

So I don't think spending more on an incubator will be in the cards for me. I may try to make a better one as the pieces come available. I already have a couple of water heaters that are to be thrown out, and insulation. So that may be a future project. This next batch of eggs will probably be last for a while until I find out what kind of chickens I end up with and make something more stable, or get the bug again. As it is right now, hatching is kind of loosing it's attraction

 

[FireTigeris]

Quote:
The LG is more than likey the problem, they are notorious for poor hatches and disasters, if you have new egg's on their way is there any way you can order or buy a real incubator before you set those ??. Just not wanting you to fail again.

AL

I have never seen any other incubators for sell in the stores here and I think the LG I bought was the only one they had. I really don't want to spend too much money on this because after I get the few chickens I want I don't think I will be doing much more hatching (HaHa last words right!!) My DH said he didn't mind a farm with chickens, but didn't want a chicken farm

So I don't think spending more on an incubator will be in the cards for me. I may try to make a better one as the pieces come available. I already have a couple of water heaters that are to be thrown out, and insulation. So that may be a future project. This next batch of eggs will probably be last for a while until I find out what kind of chickens I end up with and make something more stable, or get the bug again. As it is right now, hatching is kind of loosing it's attraction

My LG does just fine, just be sure its set for no higher then 102 w/o eggs for 24hours.

 

[Jacobnlynn]

I bought just some mixed color Silkies off Ebay this year, I bought 22 and they shipped me 24. When I was taking them out of the cartons I dropped one. I got 23 into the incubator. One was infertile, no growth whatsoever. Twenty two grew to day 18.. at which point we had a snowstorm with really high winds.. sucked the heat right out of my house during the night and brought my incubator temp down to 87f!!! I'm sure it spent at least half the night like that. You can understand my letdown.. day 18. I put them in the hatcher the next day, I still had 3 hatch, 3 I heard peeping inside the egg so I broke holes for them.. one hatched fine the rest of the way by itselt, the other two just didn't have the umph to make it out. When I saw the yolk sac was absorbed I pulled them out.. but they were extremely weak and died about 8 hours later (I did CPR on both chicks and brought them back each once.. but the cold just did too much damage). The others I opened, all dead with a good layer of 'gel' still over them.. those probably died at day 18 when it got cold.

As far as shipping the eggs.. that part went fine. They came from the southeast US, and I'm in the Northwest (Louisiana to Wyoming). I've had eggs shipped before.. I once had one that I could see was damaged on the inside. The air sac had broken, I could see liquid in the sac, so I had that one for breakfast the next day. I doubt shipping caused that much trouble.. probably temperature fluctuations. Even having them out candling could chill them. I'd only check at the 14 day mark.. and remove any that hadn't grown to that point. Candle fast and get them back in.

Still air incubators don't do very well.. 50% was a GOOD hatch for me when I used them.

 

[Komaki]

Quote:
The LG is more than likey the problem, they are notorious for poor hatches and disasters, if you have new egg's on their way is there any way you can order or buy a real incubator before you set those ??. Just not wanting you to fail again.

AL

I have never seen any other incubators for sell in the stores here and I think the LG I bought was the only one they had. I really don't want to spend too much money on this because after I get the few chickens I want I don't think I will be doing much more hatching (HaHa last words right!!) My DH said he didn't mind a farm with chickens, but didn't want a chicken farm

So I don't think spending more on an incubator will be in the cards for me. I may try to make a better one as the pieces come available. I already have a couple of water heaters that are to be thrown out, and insulation. So that may be a future project. This next batch of eggs will probably be last for a while until I find out what kind of chickens I end up with and make something more stable, or get the bug again. As it is right now, hatching is kind of loosing it's attraction

Yeh Right. See ya in a hatch along