Out of curiosity (and a fear of exploding eggs) I candled about half my incubator today. Just the half that was set to hatch the 21st and the 24th. The 6 I had for the 21st were doing fine- nice veins and little tiny heartbeats but the ones from a couple days later were -all- clears, or at least looked that way. They're from the exact same birds, so I know the roos WERE doing their jobs. However, I looked at the dates on the 3 eggs from the 1st batch I pulled out on Friday that were clears, and it's all from the last couple days of May, the ones closest to the batch of 8 that are clears. The fertility rate seems to have declined completely from 100% (4/4 fertile and grew) to 0% (8/8 fertile).
I'm very confused and will have to take a look in a week at the last 5 I was given. I know the cheeps have been under some stress, because they're actually in the process of having three coops built around them while they live. They're all free range so they wander about the yard while the construction is going on, and come in at night to lay and sleep. I'll have to figure out if the roos are not doing their job or if the storage pre-incubation was wrong now.
So I'm down to 6 for my June hatch now!
