Hi,
This was my first shot at incubation. Eggs had a tough time shipping (Florida to California) 21 shipped 4 broken. Started with 17, 5 yokers, 5 quitters, got 7 to lockdown, 2 hatched. One on day 21, it got stuck and needed assistance getting out of the shell. She had zipped most of the shell then got stuck. Took some serious work to get her unstuck and out. One other hatched on day 22, it got out by itself, but it was weak and small has taken a week go get going and is still not "right". There were 3 that pipped internally (pictures below).
Got a Hovabator with the disk thermometer. Kept it pretty close to 99.5 it would swing a degree from 99 to 100, but usually about .5 off either way. That was about as close as I could get it with the thermometer in the bator. There were no big swings in temp.
Humidity averaged about 40%. Lowest was 18% for a day and highest was 50% for a day. On day 18 we went to lockdown. Filled up all the trays on the hovabator and got the humidity up to about 75% probably was 72 on average for the 3 days. I couldn't get it any higher than 75%.
This is the egg picture (sorry it is so blury) I took the top off the large end. The pocket was DRY. You can see the chick was pipped (white dot on the top of the picture is the beak). No liquid in the air pocket. Chick was big and VERY tight in the shell. I could not spin it at all.
Chick 1 - Pipped, beak was in air sack. Yoke not fully absorbed.
Chick 2 - Pipped, little bit of blood by it's beak. Seems like the beak is too low and away from air sack. Yoke not fully absorbed.
Chick 3 - Pipped, this little guy looked perfect? It seemed big and tight in the shell
Happy Picture - These are little Welsummer chicks. The boy on the left was the small one, girl on the right is doing great.
I am getting ready to try a second hatch. Any idea what I did wrong? Any suggestions are most appreciated!
Thanks!
This was my first shot at incubation. Eggs had a tough time shipping (Florida to California) 21 shipped 4 broken. Started with 17, 5 yokers, 5 quitters, got 7 to lockdown, 2 hatched. One on day 21, it got stuck and needed assistance getting out of the shell. She had zipped most of the shell then got stuck. Took some serious work to get her unstuck and out. One other hatched on day 22, it got out by itself, but it was weak and small has taken a week go get going and is still not "right". There were 3 that pipped internally (pictures below).
Got a Hovabator with the disk thermometer. Kept it pretty close to 99.5 it would swing a degree from 99 to 100, but usually about .5 off either way. That was about as close as I could get it with the thermometer in the bator. There were no big swings in temp.
Humidity averaged about 40%. Lowest was 18% for a day and highest was 50% for a day. On day 18 we went to lockdown. Filled up all the trays on the hovabator and got the humidity up to about 75% probably was 72 on average for the 3 days. I couldn't get it any higher than 75%.
This is the egg picture (sorry it is so blury) I took the top off the large end. The pocket was DRY. You can see the chick was pipped (white dot on the top of the picture is the beak). No liquid in the air pocket. Chick was big and VERY tight in the shell. I could not spin it at all.
Chick 1 - Pipped, beak was in air sack. Yoke not fully absorbed.
Chick 2 - Pipped, little bit of blood by it's beak. Seems like the beak is too low and away from air sack. Yoke not fully absorbed.
Chick 3 - Pipped, this little guy looked perfect? It seemed big and tight in the shell
Happy Picture - These are little Welsummer chicks. The boy on the left was the small one, girl on the right is doing great.
I am getting ready to try a second hatch. Any idea what I did wrong? Any suggestions are most appreciated!
Thanks!
