Mahonri's 3rd Annual, BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[coz74]

Ok, back in my proper location! I didn't realize I could tread water for so long!!! LOL!!

Do you think this was a plot my the "Westies" to drown out the Midwest Peeps?

 

[Mahonri]

HI....FROM GA....THIS WILL BE MY FIRST YEAR...LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FUN!!

Participant #100!

 

[sager:)silkies]

Participant #100!

im the only canadian dose that count lol

 

[NotAFarm]

Quote:

They were probably just after Kathy but the rest of us were east of her so we had to go too!!

 

[CayuseRanch]

If everyone will give mahonri's first post a thumbs up that should make it a top rated post on the byc home page.

 

[coz74]

They were probably just after Kathy but the rest of us were east of her so we had to go too!!

Oh, friendly fire.

 

[ChooksChick]

Ok everyone, I need all of your expert hatching help... Please read thru my experience and let me know your thoughts.

I have just completed my second hatch in an incubator and my very first with shipped eggs. So I am really new to this. I put in two eggs of my own and 8 FBC Maran eggs. Because all of the eggs were so dark, candeling was near impossible. I had perfect temps, no power outages, I didn't take them out except for twice to candle. So here I am on day 24 and I do an eggtopsy. My two eggs had development my cuckoo maran was the furthest developed probably quit around lockdown time. The other one was an early quitter, probably before day 10. Now here is my thoughts on the shipped eggs and I know that there is risk with shipped eggs. 1) I ordered 10 eggs, but two were broken they were wrapped in bubble wrap that did not have inflated bubbles (was this a shipper issue or could they have been flown and maybe an air pressure thing?) 2) Of the 8 eggs only 1 showed any sign of development 3) two of the shipped eggs I was able to open without busting the sac and found the yolk still intact like a regular egg but there was no sign of fertility, no white spot, no veins nothing. 4) One of the shipped eggs had a green ring which points towards bacteria. There was a very faint stale smell to the incubation.

So my questions are... Do you think that I got unfertilized eggs and 2 what went wrong with the hatch? Could it have been the bacteria in the one egg? If so why the two different stages of development?

I will chalk this one up to an educational experience as disappointed as I am.

I'm going to use cut and paste because it's easy and I'm lazy:
>>>>
Hiya! I use the same method for all of my own eggs, which is posted in my signature. When hatching shipped Marans, I'll sand them like this French Cuckoo Marans egg:

I only sand until I'm just through the color, and then I mist the eggs with betadine-water, mixed to the color of iced tea. This covers the contamination that could occur now that I've removed the bloom.

The idea is to promote evaporation to allow the chick to grow smaller than it would if it contained all of the moisture it started with. I have had too many chicks large enough that they couldn't pip or hatch properly- fully formed chicks that didn't make it at hatch. Once I started using this method (got it from an Emu farmer!) I have had significantly better success with shipped eggs. It doesn't seem to really be necessary with local eggs (my own) and I'm not certain why. When hatching in a really nice incubator, like a Sportsman or an rcom, it also doesn't appear to be necessary, but with most affordable models, it's a helpful method.

I do increase humidity at the end of my hatch, as per my Incubation Cheater, the same for Marans as for other eggs. My feeling is that if you have evaporated the proper amount during the first 18 days, you can't drown them with humidity at the end. Humidity merely prevents evaporation, it doesn't make eggs 'take-on' water.

This works well for me, but like most on BYC, I don't consider myself and egg-spert... I just like to share my egg-speriences to help anyone else who might be able to learn from them!

Good luck!!

<<<<

If everyone will give mahonri's first post a thumbs up that should make it a top rated post on the byc home page.

Egg-cellent idea!!

ChestnutRidge, thanks so much for the info- I'll go over all of my links and try to get it all fixed up. I know I've had several broken links already to fix...but I've got a boatload of stuff, so I'm sure that there's more! I appreciate the notice, though, or folks might never get to the info to help!

Cheers!!

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Hi Dar,

I'm in!!! Just have to figure out what to set now! Probably EE's if I can get my hands on some more.

 

[debs_flock]

Dang I need more of these, my little Welsummer, Marilyn is just HQ, but I LOVE her speckled eggs!



Deb

 

[Grumpypantsmomma]

Ok everyone, I need all of your expert hatching help... Please read thru my experience and let me know your thoughts.

I have just completed my second hatch in an incubator and my very first with shipped eggs. So I am really new to this. I put in two eggs of my own and 8 FBC Maran eggs. Because all of the eggs were so dark, candeling was near impossible. I had perfect temps, no power outages, I didn't take them out except for twice to candle. So here I am on day 24 and I do an eggtopsy. My two eggs had development my cuckoo maran was the furthest developed probably quit around lockdown time. The other one was an early quitter, probably before day 10. Now here is my thoughts on the shipped eggs and I know that there is risk with shipped eggs. 1) I ordered 10 eggs, but two were broken they were wrapped in bubble wrap that did not have inflated bubbles (was this a shipper issue or could they have been flown and maybe an air pressure thing?) 2) Of the 8 eggs only 1 showed any sign of development 3) two of the shipped eggs I was able to open without busting the sac and found the yolk still intact like a regular egg but there was no sign of fertility, no white spot, no veins nothing. 4) One of the shipped eggs had a green ring which points towards bacteria. There was a very faint stale smell to the incubation.

So my questions are... Do you think that I got unfertilized eggs and 2 what went wrong with the hatch? Could it have been the bacteria in the one egg? If so why the two different stages of development?

I will chalk this one up to an educational experience as disappointed as I am.

My first batch of hatching eggs That I ever ordered came to me nicely packed no damage to package or the eggs themselves! I did what the instructions said to do and that was to let them settle for 12 hours to a day before incubating. On day 7 I candled the eggs only to see nothing because they were dark shelled too, So I let them go a little longer, I did another candling on one that was clear and decided to crack it open, it also had a funny green ring and awful smell, I eventually weeded out all except one that made it to hatch day but never pipped and died. My incubator temp and humidity were optimum.
I have done a test on fertile eggs and non fertile eggs, in the incubator to see if it was something I did wrong. I incubated them together moving any developing embryo's into another incubator so as not to be spoiled, any early death were put back in the incubator with infertile eggs, I incubated them until i got a slight fowl smell, mind you i did not have the infertile and early death in my house. my discovery was that if you let an early death go long enough the green ring bacteria will form in the egg, the infertile eggs when cracked open had a yellowy orange tinge and a different kind of fowl smell and maybe a dot of green but no green ring. after all of this I have come to the conclusion that the green Ring of bacteria only forms in an egg that was fertile to begin with at some point or another.
In my experience and i am sure that there are a few that DON'T AGREE, I believe you got fertile eggs that were scrambled in transit like my first ones!
And yes I am no egg-spert either just chiming in with my 2 cents based on my experience!