Sorry to hear about your run of bad luck Coffeychicks. Don't give up for too long.
Have you checked, rechecked and recalibrated your incubator between hatches, to see if there is a reason behind your lossses?
Were the eggs all from the same flock?
YAY Elliechooks!! Don't ignore the temptation... you know you can't
Well, our first incubation was a success, to a degree (If I don't say so myself)
11 of the 16 eggs that went into lockdown have hatched.
The first one that hatched had a slightly bloody naval, splayed legs and appears to have possibly gotten stuck to the shell at some point, as his back has a little sore on it.
One chick hatched deformed. It's beak is misaligned and it's missing an eye. Almost looks as though it's missing half of it's face/skeletal structure. This chick pipped at the wrong end.
Another, we ummed and arrrghed for 24 hours before deciding this morning to assist it out of it's egg.
I'm glad we did, because after he had pipped a hole halfway down the egg, big enough to stick his head through, he went no further but rather turned a little bit away and then dried out a fair bit and got a little stuck. It was only after reading the assisting hatch sticky on BYC and watching until we saw the membranes browning and shrivelling that we stepped in.
It had absorbed everything, has a slightly puffy naval, but otherwise appears to be perfectly fine and rather tired from attempting to break free for so long. It was attemtping to push the shell apart with it's legs as I gently picked away tiny pieces of it's shell.
I think it felt a little liberated afterwards as I'm sure it's certain it did it all by itself LOL
I very quickly checked the last 5 eggs and can't find an internal pip, see movement, nor hear peeping when I tap the egg but still chose to give them and the incubator a good spray of warm water and proceed to allow them another 24 to 48 hours.
I have read conflicting views on wether hatched chicks playing football/soccer affects other eggs hatching, but I have noticed that the majority of the 5 left in there unhatched atm, WERE knocked about by other chicks, until they were edged up against the incubator wall, or trapped in a corner.
I feel confident that I can buy decent quality eggs and put them in, because I DIDN'T FAIL MISERABLY (as I expected myself to)
I'll post some photo's later after I take some.
(edited because my CDO kicked in and I had to correct a name spelling error and add a paragraph spacing... and then edit my edit note, of another spelling error... need more coffee)
I love the chickies
But if they stop laying and I'm pretty sure they have already started developing then I do have this lamp and I make up a lil ghetto incubator Lol
