It's day 23 & no signs of eggs hatching.

[woolyfirefly]

It's a homemade bator. We made it out of an old cooler. I think the temp has fluctuated too much. The eggs seemed to stay at a constant temp, but I never could get a real good reading on them. And I'm not sure how acurate my humidity was being read either. I just thought since the one that pipped early was fully developed everything might turn out ok. Very doubtful now.

All we can do now is wait for a couple more days. if nothing happens I will open them up to see how far they got. That may help in the future. Will definatly try again, once I get my bator on the right track.

 

[deerman]

Quote:
My guess they got to hot at sometime...to hot will kill the whole batch....other wise you should had a few hatch.

 

[scbatz33]

When it gets this far along with no action, I will take a very sharp object, like a small screwdriver and poke a hole at the large end of the the egg. If there is movvement inside then I put it back, if not then open it up and see what state of developement the chick was when it died. At day 25, with no other pips, it's my opinion that if you don't open the egg the chicks have no chance at all. I'd rather open it, risk a bit of shrink wrap that I have to help with than having a whole hatch die.

 

[Surehatch]

Don't give up hope but the signs are not good

 

[woolyfirefly]

Quote:
We did have one pipp, but never got any further. When I opened it up it was fully developed, but it's insides weren't all inside. It was like where the "umbilical cord" (I guess you would call it) connected to its belly didn't close all the way. But we heard it cheep and everything. And got so excited, but I was worried because it pipped on day 18. So I wasn't very suprised that it didn't make it.

We had a huge winter storm hit here last night, so now I am worried about the power going out. Only have one day left that eggs could hatch, So I hope we atleast keep power for that long.


To Scbatz33 It's day 26, do you think it is too late to try that?

 

[Shiloh Acres]

I had a new young broody pullet set eggs, so I let her keep a few (silkie, let her have 5 standard eggs, which was probably too many). On day 23, I thought they were dead and started to discard. There was a fully formed live chick in the first egg so I put the others back. Day 25, saw a pip. No progress, so I tried to help it, and the chick was not fully ready to hatch. I decided to let nature take it's course, since the broody was very inexperienced and I was seeing so much variance in dates/readiness. The others hatched healthy chicks on day 27, 28, and going into day 29.

I have a nice little sex-link pullet growing up out of that hatch, so I'm very glad I didn't kill them all. I never knew eggs could hatch at such variable rates before, and most of my hatches have been under broodies.

 

[deerman]

Quote:
We did have one pipp, but never got any further. When I opened it up it was fully developed, but it's insides weren't all inside. It was like where the "umbilical cord" (I guess you would call it) connected to its belly didn't close all the way. But we heard it cheep and everything. And got so excited, but I was worried because it pipped on day 18. So I wasn't very suprised that it didn't make it.

We had a huge winter storm hit here last night, so now I am worried about the power going out. Only have one day left that eggs could hatch, So I hope we atleast keep power for that long.


To Scbatz33 It's day 26, do you think it is too late to try that?

high temp will also cause eggs to pip early even hatch a day early....but to hot it will kill them. Chick pull the yolk sack in just before they hatch, most after they pip.

 

[Cranman]

How hot is too hot? I have a home made 'bater too and in the first 5-6 days it would cycle between about 99 and 104. I got it running now at around 97 and 102 but I can't get it to stabilize any better than that. I did buy a "real" bater this weekend, so after this batch I will be able to work on it and tweak it.

So will 104-106 kill the eggs?

 

[woolyfirefly]

Quote:
So glad you posted this. I was going to open them all tomorrow. There are not any with an odor & I thought they would have an odor if they weren't any good. We started with 12 & have elimated 3 because of them starting to stink, but all at different times. One in first couple of days, then the next after week and half, and one just the other day. The other 3 we had candled & found they had stopped developing.

The rest have no odor at all. Maybe they just aren't ready to come out yet, I hope. We will see. I think I'm going to need stress meds after all this is done. LOL!

 

[Baralak]

Quote:
A consistant temp of that range will kill them.