Interesting eggtopsy results . . .

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Here is the background:
I put 30 shipped eggs in the bator 23 days ago. They came from a very generous and contientous BYCer, who keeps excellent records. They came from two seperate breeding flocks and were marked with the Roosters initials; 12 eggs from C., and 18 from F. They were stored the same way, collected the same way, shipped the same way, incubated in the same bator and handled the same way.
Of the 18 eggs from F, I got 13 chicks all on day 21, the other 5 were infertiles or what looked like shipping breakdowns, 1 zipped but didn't hatch, looked like he got turned wrong and aspirated some fluid - pretty good hatch, really good actually.
Of the 12 eggs from C, I didn't get one chick. I let them go until today (day 23) and then performed "eggtopsies". I found the results very interesting, it looked like I had a quitter every other day. I could have taken pictures for an embryo development book. Right up to day 21. there was an infertile double yolker, a scrambled yolk with just a speck, a five day, a 7 day and on and on.
The breeder said he also has had many problems from the line of hens he has in that breeding pen; mishapen eggs, very porous shells, and they have not held up in shipping well.
The shells were very porous which made it a delight to candle . . . and the eggs were slightly elongated but I have seen much worse.
So what do you think? there was no obvious sign of bacterial invasion, they didn't all stop at any one point, the eggs from the other breeding pen in the same incubator did great . . .
Just looking for opinions on a curious situation.

 

[gabrielle1976]

 

[dancingbear]

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Did you mean contentious, or conscientious? I'm guessing the second one.....

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OK, I have to ask this...if he knows there are serious problems with the eggs from the hens in that pen, why is he shipping them? Or were these sent free as a test batch, to see what would happen? Or did he not know until he'd sent out a bunch? I can see how a person might ship out a bunch of eggs, then find out later there's a problem.

 

[walkswithdog]

Katy with progressive loss like that it's probably porousity and either an inability to hold sufficient humidity at bator temps, or bacterial infusion.

Does he/she have any luck hatching those under a broody? If a broody can do it then it's likely more the porousity. And some consequences of that and shipping that causes the gradual result like that.

But if they're so porous the vapor barrier is fragile or incompetant then between shipping scrambling, water loss and bacterial intrustion I'd think they'd be all but impossible to go after shipping.

 

[Akane]

I would say they suffered more shipping damage from not being as good of quality shells and overall eggs. That's why some won't ship or set more porous eggs. Not that I haven't had plenty hatch but stack them against each other and the eggs with more uniform shape and shell will hatch better. The hens in that pen may need more supplements or maybe they are just younger and not laying steadily yet. Otherwise if they really are from completely different lines it could even be genetic.

 

[Dirt Road]

I can't offer an explanation, but some observations which are meant only in the spirit of discussion. If the problem were porosity wouldn't they have tended to reach a point, depending on the porosity and then kind of quit at about the same time? Also a bacterial invasion from my experience would have rendered the earliest quitters downright putrid by day 23. Maybe not? Please understand I am NOT trying to be argumentative. I find discussions on these kind of subjects very interesting. I have just candled some Nankin eggs which I am using for an incubator test, and wound up with some odd results somewhat like this, but I do not wish to hi-jack this thread. As Akane mentioned could you find out the relative age, any feeding differences, how closely related the two pens might be if at all, etc.?

Jim

 

[Akane]

Each egg would have differences in how porous they are and other things that would effect incubating at different points. An extremely porous egg is going to have problems quicker so a bunch of porous eggs might not quit at the same time unless something contributes like the incubator running out of water so the humidity is extra low for a couple days. Eggs damaged in shipping that still develop also don't all quit at exactly the same time. Generally they do seem to quit within the first 10 days or so though. When I get a badly shaken batch I'll have a couple quit on day 3 or 4, another on day 5, several on day 7, and maybe 1 or 2 after that before the rest incubate fine until hatching time. The only time you get them all to quit on the exact same day is when something external causes it like temp or humidity spikes/drops.

Not all eggs get infected or grow bacteria at the same speed either. I've had clears left till day 22 that were just starting to go bad and I had a couple coturnix quail eggs that were oozing on day 5 once. Too many variables.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
Did you mean contentious, or conscientious? I'm guessing the second one.....

Quote:
OK, I have to ask this...if he knows there are serious problems with the eggs from the hens in that pen, why is he shipping them? Or were these sent free as a test batch, to see what would happen? Or did he not know until he'd sent out a bunch? I can see how a person might ship out a bunch of eggs, then find out later there's a problem.

My bad spelling, I mean conscientious. The guy is awesome, they were free test eggs. I was not complaining at all merely wanting to have a discussion about the issue. I am really glad I had the opportunity for this learning experience.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

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I don't understand the stack them part? And yes the hens in this one breeding pen were of a completely different line, unrelated to the hens in the other breeding pen. The roosters were related, but I think in this case that has little to do with it. He also said the hens in the "bad" group won't go broody while the ones in the "good" group do.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

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Exactly that's why I posted this. It does make for a rather interesting and learning discussion. I agree with you. I think that bacterial invasion was very unlikely the eggs showed no signs of "bad" odor, color, or breakdown - none of them. And if it was the porosity, I would think that they all would have stopped close to each other . . . but then maybe each egg had a diffferent level of porosity? But then on the other hand I have seen on people hatching cracked eggs, eggs they poked holes in etc.