Late Hatch....How long is too long?

[ChickidyChick]

First time hatching. Day 21 was Sunday, March 31st. Eighteen eggs. Candled at 7 & 14 - all were good although some are darker eggs and couldn't quite see. One chick hatched on April 1st and is doing fine. Water tested the remaining 17 and all 'pass' as fully developed but not rock and rolling. Temperature was down for awhile on day 14. The rest of the incubation process has been uneventful. My question is: How late is too late? I've read to wait a week over hatch day. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

 

[missnu01]

Can't hurt to wait...Worse case scenario a week goes by and nothing happens...in which case I think I would probably throw in the towel...

 

[missnu01]

Can't hurt to wait...Worse case scenario a week goes by and nothing happens...in which case I think I would probably throw in the towel...

I think I might have already given up just because 4 days between one hatching and then another would make me think that those eggs aren't going to hatch...If the first one hadn't I would wait longer, but since one hatched and the others did not there has to be a reason they haven't yet...the temp being off would have delayed the first one as well...so all of them would hatch late.

 

[PBlanck]

I would get the one out of there if you haven't already (leave a moist paper towel to help with the humidity loss), then wait it out.

Are they likely to hatch? No. But it doesn't hurt anything to wait. I read somebody here hatched their eggs 7 and 8 days late.

 

[ChickidyChick]

I took the one out the next day. He is doing good. I put in a small beanie baby and a mirror. He's eating and drinking just fine.
One thing that makes me think to wait is that there are several breeds of eggs. Some are large and brown, some white, some smaller and green/gray, a few are small ivory colored. I got them from a friend who has her own chickens. After the float test (all floating about 15-20% out of the water) I had hope. But now 2 more days have passed and nothing.

 

[missnu01]

Perhaps the breed makes a difference, but I don't know. I hope you end up with more than just the one little peeper, they don't like to be alone...you might want to try and find him or her a friend.

 

[ChickidyChick]

I figure I'll wait till Monday then go find a few friends. Thanks!

 

[jerome951000]

my bantams are late too :/ they should have hatched two days ago and im worried it was a bad idea to stop turning on day 19 because now there must have been several eggs which were still underdeveloped and needed to be turned i candle them often and a few of them seem far behind others, but many can be seen kicking about in the egg. i decided to keep turning the ones which look far behind and leave the ones which look about to hatch as is.

its been a very bad incubation. i had 70 perfectly fertilized eggs by day 9, and one night i keft the temperature probe connected to the thermostat outside the incubator, meaning it was left to heat up without the controller ever detecting anything. this killed off a lot of the eggs and only left me with about 10 live ones could this shock have delayed the hatching? there were nights when the temperature dropped to 34 celsius but other than that i kept it at 37.5. the humidity has always been spot on. is it wirth waiting for up to a week from now?

cheers
jerome

 

[missnu01]

Hmm. If none have hatched then I might wait a bit.

 

[PBlanck]

You have nothing to gain by pulling the plug, so yes, you might as well wait.

As for turning the eggs, it does not have to be as regimented as we might think. They don't all get perfectly turned in nature either. The hens don't get up, turn each egg precisely 1/2 turn and then sit back down. Some eggs get turned more, some less, some might even miss a turning or two. They still hatch. So I don't think the fact that you quit turning on day 19 is going to hurt anything. Same with temperature. While hens can keep it fairly steady, it will still be effected by outside temperature, snow, rain, etc. Hens can do a better job of heating eggs when it is cold out than they can cooling the eggs when it is too hot. All you can do is give the remaining eggs time to either hatch or fail.