Many of my chicks quit on day 14 or so?

[aggie2013]

Well I am going to talk with her. Maybe the eggs were older than she realized.

Thank you for your input it's been helpful

 

[n8ivetxn]

That's a good point, maybe they were older than she thought - I didn't think of that! Wish I'd been able to help more, I'm curious what happened...

Good Luck & Welcome to BYC!

 

[Greenfly]

Hi! First time poster here. I actually made an account after reading many helpful threads here.

I tried my hand at incubating eggs for the first time. I had a shipment of 14 ameraucana eggs. 9 I put under a broody hen(who hatched 6). The other 5 I incubated with an additional 18 my neighbor gave me. Out of the 23 eggs only 3 chicks hatched (one didn't make it, she didn't absorb her yolk). It's now day 23 almost 24. I have 7 left that I candeled and it doesn't look promising. None of the embryos moved at all.

I took the rest of the eggs outside and cracked/took pictures. Many of them looked liked they stopped right at day 14. Can anyone help me figure out what went so wrong?
Additional information: humidity was kept at 45-49%, temperature in a forced air incubator was at 99.5, I used an automatic egg turner with the fat eggs facing up, and lastly I only candeled days 7,14, and 18.

Aggie... I totally get it.. I am DEVASTATED. This is day 22, but its the second day 22... the first hatch of 12 NOT ONE hatched. We had homemade our incubator so figured it was that as it wasn't consistent enough, the temp was up and down. SO... we bought a fancy new one.. Tried our hygrometer in it, and it seemed fairly similar... Now were at day 22 and NOTHING. Nothing happening at all. We have 19 eggs.. we had 24, the lost were some duds and some with blood rings. We chose not to candle later than day 10 because we were so despondent last time we wanted to just have hope. but nothing seems to be happening. How can I possibly get it down to a 0% hatch rate in a fancy incubator that has been constant the whole time. Any help. Thats two different incubators and no babies. They were all postal eggs, thats the only similarity.

 

[n8ivetxn]

They were all postal eggs, thats the only similarity.

Therein lies the problem.

Two weeks ago I started incubating 41 shipped eggs (first time hatcher, home made bator). I candled when I received the eggs and knew some were in rough shape. I set all 41. At day 14 I removed half of them. Most of them had no development at all. So now I have 20 eggs in there, but I can only see movement in 2 - 3 of them. Another 3 are very dark, can't see anything, so I kept them in. The others, I have no idea if anything will happen.

I don't blame the seller, he wrapped them great - even the shipping box was in great shape when it arrived. Eggs are very delicate, shipping is hard on them. However, I'm bidding on some more, I'll give it another try. If it doesn't work this next time, I'll wait until spring, make a road trip and go get some live birds.

I know it's sad, but try not to let it turn you off completely. Just realize that shipped eggs have been through a lot and many may not hatch.

And, welcome to BYC

 

[Greenfly]

Thanks for the welcome!!

It is sad... its so demoralising! I mean school classes here hatch them in the classroom!!! Makes me think I'm a really bad "parent'!!!

I am going to go and get local eggs for third time lucky.

It worries me that I have absolutely NO movement or anything. Not even one. Are your sure theres nothing Im missing??

 

[n8ivetxn]

Thanks for the welcome!!

It is sad... its so demoralising! I mean school classes here hatch them in the classroom!!! Makes me think I'm a really bad "parent'!!!

I am going to go and get local eggs for third time lucky.

It worries me that I have absolutely NO movement or anything. Not even one. Are your sure theres nothing Im missing??

I totally agree, it is discouraging when a classroom full of students can hatch, but we can't!

I think there are so many factors that cause it though, not being a bad parent, LOL! It's possible you did everything near perfect, but the eggs just had a rough trip through the post... I'm fairly certain that's what happened to mine.

I would just recommend checking your temp and humidity. I'm using a dry hatch method, with humidity at 27 - 35% for the first 17 days and then 65-70% from lockdown to hatch. With local eggs, I bet you have a good hatch. As long as they're fertile!

 

[Greenfly]

do you have good results dry?

 

[aggie2013]

I haven't started the next batch yet. I need to calibrate my thermometer/hydrometer before I do.

 

[n8ivetxn]

do you have good results dry?

This is my first hatch (usually use broodies), but recent research and word of mouth has it that the dry hatch method produces better, higher hatch rates than traditional methods.... I really can't even use my current batch as any kind of experiment because the eggs were shipped and I've had to remove half of them (yolkers and quitters).

I'm ordering a 2nd bunch of shipped eggs later this week and I'll run dry again. We'll see what happens....

 

[Greenfly]

Hey... I posted about our eggs in another thread not sure Anyone is still reading it. So I'm posting the pics here to see if you can help... Hope that's ok.
Gruesome picture alert!!!

We floated our day 24 eggs today and had four obvious duds. One was a partially fertilised embryo. Two just yolk but the fourth was fully developed we didn't kill it. It was gone. But it looked like something went wrong... It has a sack on its rear end.. Is this normal? Heard of chicks born with their intestines out...wasn't sure. Also is it clear from the pic whether our temp or humidity upset him?

Interestingly the rest of the 14 eggs all bobbed about at the same depth.. So either they all died at once or they are the same? We put them back in just in case. But say only 10% showed above so small air sack?

I don't know!! Help! Egg-topsies are essential!