Is it alive?

[Kiki]

I thought you increase it the last couple of days? I didn’t have it that high the whole time. Just when I felt it was close to hatch.

Well everybody does things differently but I do not increase my humidity until I actually see an external pip.

 

[Kiki]

That thermometer that you bought separately... Did you calibrate it?
Unfortunately thermometers sometimes don't read correctly.

I'm taking a wild guess here but I think it is possible that you may have had a temperature spike for a little too long and it could have killed the egg.

 

[BrinseaUS]

I thought you increase it the last couple of days? I didn’t have it that high the whole time. Just when I felt it was close to hatch.

It depends on the breed, but yes generally you keep the humidity at 40-50% during incubation and then raise it as high as 65% during hatching.

 

[Whitnicrob]

Hi there, welcome to BYC!

That egg does not appear to have a viable embryo in it to me.

Being described as once full... this looks like draw down from the embryo degrading after passing.

Can you upload your moving video to youtube or vimeo and post a link here to see if we can see what you are with the movement?

I also have still air styrofoam bator... I love it.

Did you hen have any eggs hatch?

No the hen sat on about 10, only this 1 had an embryo. So I tried to save it. I literally bought the incubator to save the egg.

 

[Whitnicrob]

It depends on the breed, but yes generally you keep the humidity at 40-50% during incubation and then raise it as high as 65% during hatching.

Interesting. Breed matters? This would have been a mix of a cream crested legbar and some other breed. Not sure whIch hen originally laid the egg.

 

[Whitnicrob]

That thermometer that you bought separately... Did you calibrate it?
Unfortunately thermometers sometimes don't read correctly.

I'm taking a wild guess here but I think it is possible that you may have had a temperature spike for a little too long and it could have killed the egg.

I didn’t calibrate (not sure how that’s done) what I did was put the egg and other thermometer close to the center of the still air incubator elevated a bit. I only kept the incubator at 99.5 instead of the higher temp because of the fact that it was close to the heater. I then cross referenced both temps. The only that the incubator said and the other and they both were getting the same reading. So I felt they should be accurate. I watched temps closely when home, but then I left for 24 hours. I tried to manage the temperature of the house with the Nest thermostat so that the house didn’t get abnormally cold, but when I came home and candled it looked like this. I’m thinking something happened in that 24 hours.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Breed matters?

Egg color matters... the darker the egg color the lower your humidity should be because the pigment thickness slows dehydration and if too much liquid is left in the egg... the chick can drown at pip.

If nothing else developed or hatched... you may have been fighting a loosing battle from the beginning. Hard to say for sure. Other than you did your best!

 

[Kiki]

Interesting. Breed matters? This would have been a mix of a cream crested legbar and some other breed. Not sure whIch hen originally laid the egg.

I don't agree..that breed matters.
It does matter which incubator you are using and since I used the exact same incubator as you I would never have my humidity above 40% throughout.

 

[Whitnicrob]

In

Egg color matters... the darker the egg color the lower your humidity should be because the pigment thickness slows dehydration and if too much liquid is left in the egg... the chick can drown at pip.

If nothing else developed or hatched... you may have been fighting a loosing battle from the beginning. Hard to say for sure. Other than you did your best!

Good info! It definitely is a darker brown egg, not like a chocolate though. It was developing wonderfully from what I could tell. Air cell grew, it was awesome. But I think your right lots could have gone wrong, maybe it had deformities that I couldn’t see. At one point my husband had even accidentally collected it with the other eggs he didn’t see the mark. I think he may have caused a lot of vibration. I’m just sad because I thought I managed to pull it off and feel like I lost it only because I left when I didn’t want to.

 

[Whitnicrob]

I don't agree..that breed matters.
It does matter which incubator you are using and since I used the exact same incubator as you I would never have my humidity above 40% throughout.

I have read about keeping it lower too. So did you buy the extra fan for yours? What temp do you set it to? How do you increase humidity when you need to? Mine doesn’t want to increase easily.