Did you take the chicks all the way out of the shells to see how the were positioned?Two of my chicks died after pipping. They never did anything else. Any ideas why they didn’t zip? The humidity is been great. In fact their membrane still look wet.
Welcome to the hatch along.Can I join in on the fun?! I started my incubation 11 days ago. I am expecting them on Mother's Day weekend. In my incubator we have 10 eggs from our own hens and roos. Not certain which roo will be the daddy but could be my lavender ameraucana or my EE that we sold the day before the eggs went in the incubator. The hens are a mix of brown leghorns, golden comets, a silver laced cochin and a splash orpington.
in addition to those eggs, I bought a half dozen blue orpington and a half dozen black ameraucana eggs from a local breeder.
on day 4 when I candled them I found 3 that are likely duds, one from my cochin and two from the blue orpington. my other hens eggs looked right on track, however the eggs from the breeder looked a day or two ahead. I did find one that I thought was dead because it was bigger and darker in the shell and went to set it down and noticed it was moving around!!! Okay, so now I have a dilemma on what to do with that egg, because it really looked to be at least 4 days farther along than the rest.
anyway, we are now on day 11, maybe I will take a look again tonight to see how things are coming. Or perhaps I should wait until day 14 - but if I wait it might mean that the one farther along will be needing to be in lockdown at that point and I could end up killing it.
what to do, what to do.......
Thank you, I have watched hens setting and they do not seem to move much except to get off to eat and drink and use the toilet. I suspect that odd numbers are not a key to anything! Just movement as we see the mother hen return and move eggs as she settles her self. Odd or even as long as the eggs are moved is the generally accepted action.
welcome to the hatch a long so glad you could join
