I !HATE! the egg carton hatching method!!! I think i am gonna cry :'(

[Backyard Farm]

Thanks - On the spot"

haven't noticed that problem but I can see how that could happen..

so maybe that shelf liner stuff would even be better.

...anybody know of problems with using that?

...always looking for better ideas

 

[Intheswamp]

duck&chickencrazy, tomorrow's another day. It's not your fault, you were doing what most everyone on here does...giving it a shot and trying something different. It works for some, not for others.

As for the eggbox hatching...being a rank newbie with the only eggs in the house the ones from the grocery store and the only chicken the one frozen in the freezer I feel my thoughts are a bit uneducated but I'm wondering about eggbox hatching.

As you so heartfully noted....it's difficult, if not impossible, to tell if an egg is pipping from the wrong end. What I've been thinking about is how the eggs are sitting upright in the box creating a container for the water to remain in. When the chick or duckling starts pipping it could be met by a flood of water. Being as the egg is sitting upright it is basically a cup....with no where for the water to spill to. If the egg is laying on its side, it seems to me that the water could spill out more easily and the chick would avoid a tidal wave.

Hopefully by the end of May I'll have things ready and will be starting incubation on my seed Orps....starting my first flock...hopefully will be BBS Orps.

On day 18....they go on their sides.

Thanks for sharing your experience. It has reinforced my idea of not eggbox hatching. Even in a sad situation, by sharing the experience you may have just saved the lives of all kinds of chicks and ducklings!

Best wishes!!!
Ed

 

[Akane]

The flip side is that I've had a lot fewer chicks pip the wrong way when hatching in cartons and therefore fewer that failed to get out of their eggs due to weird pips. I've also had better number that pipped at all when hatching shipped eggs from cartons. My shipped eggs laid on their side tend to not position right and pip all over the place or don't pip unless kept in cartons. So while you may have seen one pip and die you don't know how many would never have pipped if you hadn't put them in the carton. You can't base a method on one egg.

I would not lay down paper towels. They can suck up moisture from the egg, the air, or if your water is filled too high beneath it possibly even pull water up and make a wet surface for the egg drowning the chicks. Plus it blocks air flow and in some bator designs that could be a problem. Better idea is to just put in smaller mesh if you need it or something that still has holes. I'll set the button eggs in a little mesh shelf made to hold papers and folders.

I still say I do not see the problem with eggs getting knocked around during hatch. I've never had one fail to hatch because of that unless there was another problem combined with it. Such as too high of humidity and then an egg gets rolled so it's a downward pip and the water running to the bottom of the air sac drowns the chick. Otherwise I actually purposely leave chicks in the incubator to knock eggs around, peck at pips, and peep constantly because it encourages the others to hatch. If that's your only goal with carton hatching (there are plenty of other possible benefits) then no I wouldn't use them.

 

[MagsC]

Sorry that happened to you.

I am sure the egg carton method works fine for a lot of people, I just havent had good luck with it.

 

[newdock]

I had the same problem with my last hatch. One little baby had pipped low enough that the carton was in the way and he died. I won't do it again either.....the eggs in the incubator will go on their sides next week!

 

[BirdBrain]

When hatching in a carton you cut the bottom half of each cup off.

 

[Sachasmom]

Hmmm, maybe the paper towels were the icing on the cake of my miserable hatch? I could not keep any humidity in there, and lots dried up and died.

Plus I had a staggered hatch, I figured they were done (day 23) and two were still alive when I cracked them!

I killed them!

It is way easier to clean up after though with the paper towel, but I can see that it would block the airflow too, I think I used some blue thin washcloth stuff last time. My rack is so crammed in there it would be hard to get something UNDER it, hmmm, I think I still have a plastic floor tile thing, anyone think that would be good to put UNDER the rack to make clean up easier?

I did the egg carton method both hatches, it did make it easier to get more eggs in there, but they were kinda hard to turn/tip if the egg was on the small side.

Back to the drawing board for me too. I hated seeing all those dried up chickies!

 

[klf73]

sorry about your ducks

 

[klf73]

double post

 

[wilds of pa]

Sorry to here of the troubles and loss with your hatch....

we've Never needed or tried the egg carton method here, however Ive used plastic strawberry containers inside the bators if i want to keep certain chicks from being mixed together during a particular hatch.
i took notice the eggs didn't move about the incubator but at least the chicks could get out and never had problems hatching.

we've hatched 1000's of eggs & always get 100% hatch rates around 98 to 99% of the time with out egg cartons. Never seen a set of incubator instruction saying to do so, my thoughts are, why fix it if it ain't broken.

~Wilds~