Mine Hatched - Neighbors Didnt

[Skeeter41]

My neighbor asked me to hatch 2 dozen of her eggs for her. While I was hatching those, I figured I would throw 50 of my own in my GQF 1502.

I had 48 make it to lockdown and 45 of those hatched. She had 20 make it to lockdown but only 6 hatched. 12 of the 14 that didn't hatch were pipped but they never zipped.

Her 6 that did hatch seem to be sticky and not really fluffing up real quick. Mine fluffed and are doing well. Her eggs were mixed in the trays with my eggs so it isn't because they were in a cool or hot spot in my incubator.

Any thoughts?

 

[sourland]

Any possibility that her birds are either old or inbred?

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

My neighbor asked me to hatch 2 dozen of her eggs for her. While I was hatching those, I figured I would throw 50 of my own in my GQF 1502.

I had 48 make it to lockdown and 45 of those hatched. She had 20 make it to lockdown but only 6 hatched. 12 of the 14 that didn't hatch were pipped but they never zipped.

Her 6 that did hatch seem to be sticky and not really fluffing up real quick. Mine fluffed and are doing well. Her eggs were mixed in the trays with my eggs so it isn't because they were in a cool or hot spot in my incubator.

Any thoughts?

How long did her eggs sit out before you incubated them, how old were the eggs?

 

[Skeeter41]

How long did her eggs sit out before you incubated them, how old were the eggs?

I am not sure. I will ask here. If they sat for awhile would they get to the point of pipping before they quit?

 

[Yardmom]

Did the shells seem to have similar thicknesses and pores? I find this interesting. I would think that the handling before hand would only affect if they started or not, but then again it would affect air cells

 

[Skeeter41]

Did the shells seem to have similar thicknesses and pores? I find this interesting. I would think that the handling before hand would only affect if they started or not, but then again it would affect air cells

Well here is the interesting thing. All eggs were put in the same time and due to hatch Saturday morning. Mine started hatching late Friday with most being saturday. Hers pipped friday/Saturday but didn't hatch. I kept them in the incubator and just checked this morning and there are a bunch of them in there. They hatched 2 days after mine.

 

[NatJ]

Well here is the interesting thing. All eggs were put in the same time and due to hatch Saturday morning. Mine started hatching late Friday with most being saturday. Hers pipped friday/Saturday but didn't hatch. I kept them in the incubator and just checked this morning and there are a bunch of them in there. They hatched 2 days after mine.

I would guess it's just normal variation in hatching times.

Sometimes different breeds will hatch a day earlier or later than others.

I've seen cases where the eggs from one hen hatched a day later than eggs from another hen, even when the chicks had the same father, and the eggs were all treated the same (collected same days, stored the same, mixed in the same incubator, etc.)

So as long as they do hatch, and they seem healthy, I would just figure it's within the range of normal and you probably never will know exactly why.

Her 6 that did hatch seem to be sticky and not really fluffing up real quick. Mine fluffed and are doing well.

Did hers fluff up when they had a few more hours? That could just be the difference in chicks that hatched a little later than others, and hadn't finished fluffing up by the time you were looking at them.

Or there is a chance that her eggs had something different about the shells, so they didn't lose as much water as yours during incubation, even if they shared the same incubator humidity. So the humidity might have been "too high" for them, even if it was "just right" for your eggs. If that was the case, there's not anything you could have done about it since the eggs were in the same incubator.

 

[Susan Skylark]

I’ve run into late embryonic death, weak can’t hatch chicks, deformed dead in shell chicks, deformed helped to hatch died later chicks this winter with both shipped and cold exposed eggs, this would probably also extend to old eggs (10+ days) and heat exposed eggs. Extreme stress to the undeveloped germinal tissue can cause damage to the genetic material and then to every single cell of the developing organism. I’ve also noticed when photographing candled eggs stressed eggs have far less vein development than unstressed eggs. Just candled a batch of day 4 quail eggs, saw embryos in 80% in these home raised eggs but never saw a single one on twice their number of shipped eggs (better development makes them easier to see). Besides for stress to the eggs, nutrition and genetics of source flock could also be an issue but I’d look at egg stress first.