Murphy’s law of hatching!

[Susan Skylark]

Last year at this time I borrowed an incubator and ordered some random quail eggs off eBay, had never hatched anything or kept poultry before. My eggs spent 8 days in the mail and a third were smashed, first incubation attempt I got 6/8 fertile eggs hatched. Second batch was 3 days in the mail and hatched 24/28 fertile eggs. After a year in the quail business it is time to replace my males and hopefully expand my hen flock (down to 11 hens) and would like some cool colors too. I ordered some mixed color eggs from one of the better breeders (instead of random eBay eggs) and was really excited. We’re on day 15, 5 eggs pipping but…I started with 40 eggs, 19 were infertile or early embryonic death, of the remaining 21, half have a wonky air cell (the thing is huge and oblong, the term might be saddled?). I incubated the wonky air cell eggs wide end upright and kept the humidity up, not sure if it will help. Reminds me of buying an expensive purebred dog vs getting some mutt from the pound! Shipping really is a gamble, especially with special eggs but there is literally nowhere to buy birds/eggs within 3 hours of driving, if that and I really need to expand my genetics, hopefully I get at least a couple nice males out of this debacle!

 

[Slothinc]

Last year at this time I borrowed an incubator and ordered some random quail eggs off eBay, had never hatched anything or kept poultry before. My eggs spent 8 days in the mail and a third were smashed, first incubation attempt I got 6/8 fertile eggs hatched. Second batch was 3 days in the mail and hatched 24/28 fertile eggs. After a year in the quail business it is time to replace my males and hopefully expand my hen flock (down to 11 hens) and would like some cool colors too. I ordered some mixed color eggs from one of the better breeders (instead of random eBay eggs) and was really excited. We’re on day 15, 5 eggs pipping but…I started with 40 eggs, 19 were infertile or early embryonic death, of the remaining 21, half have a wonky air cell (the thing is huge and oblong, the term might be saddled?). I incubated the wonky air cell eggs wide end upright and kept the humidity up, not sure if it will help. Reminds me of buying an expensive purebred dog vs getting some mutt from the pound! Shipping really is a gamble, especially with special eggs but there is literally nowhere to buy birds/eggs within 3 hours of driving, if that and I really need to expand my genetics, hopefully I get at least a couple nice males out of this debacle!

I hope you end up with some very cute boys! I agree, it’s always the eggs you want to hatch the most that struggle!!

 

[Chicken_Obsesser]

So true, so true. Words of wisdom right there.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Here’s a blurry picture of one of three duds, all late embryonic death (day 12-15), one was a scissorbill, strangely (or not so strangely!) I’ve had mutant chicks in all shipped hatches but only once in home raised eggs. Evening of day 16, 2 hatched, most pipping, the rest either peeping or clicking (signs of life!), 16 eggs unhatched with 3 duds, might get some quail yet!

 

[Chicken_Obsesser]

Interesting!!

 

[Susan Skylark]

The day after hatching, 11 live and lively chicks, 10 eggs that went into lockdown were dead in shell or too weak to hatch, 19 eggs were no development or early quitters. So a 25% hatchrate counting all eggs, 50% if just lockdown eggs, 35%ish if leaving out infertile or no development eggs, even for shipped eggs that stinks! Of the eggs with saddled air cells, some of those hatched fine while many normal looking eggs didn’t. So let’s do a post hatch postmortem.

Shipping is obviously stressful and detrimental to hatching. Cold can be a factor, my home raised eggs have a 25% late incubation mortality rate after sitting in a cold garage for 12 hours or so. What about color? Various color genes in many species have adverse effects on health or vitality, several colors in quail are known to cause issues or less vigorous birds. Besides a possible pansy, all my surviving chicks are either pharaoh or EB and one Italian, no cinnamon or ginger or oz snowy or black, just good old fashioned colors. This is not to say those colors are bad, but anything that weakens the egg when combined with other stressors can certainly lead to less hatching success.

Several eggs hadn’t pipped but you could hear the little beak tapping or moving, after a couple of these just faded away I cracked the shell on the last one, then after everybody else was hatched or hatching I started picking away at the wide end, with no blood and a live chick, I exposed the head and but him back in the incubator, but he didn’t even bother to leave the egg and just died too. Two others had pipped but weren’t progressing after everybody else was done, so helped them out too, both were sparsely covered in down, bright red skin, and unable to sit upright (think newly hatched robin with open eyes and a little fuzz). One died overnight and the other was culled this morning. Most of the dead in shell chicks were likewise underdeveloped and apparently just too weak to hatch. While possibly genetic or nutritional, it is probably developmental caused by stress to the eggs preincubation, as the breeder is probably one of the more well known and reputable out there. Also saddled eggs can hatch.

Shipping eggs is about like buying seeds or plants from a nursery catalog, lots of hope and big dreams, but you never know what you’ll get until you try! So what can we improve or learn here? If possible don’t ship eggs. If you do, keep your expectations modest and order extra but also be prepared if you have an amazing hatch (I ended up with 24 last spring and was hoping for 12!). If you want a more delicate strain, finding a local source is a good idea. Consider ambient weather at home and the breeder and everywhere in between, but it often isn’t predictable or feasible, but remember both heat and cold can effect hatch rates as well as blizzards, etc can cause delays.

Would I do it again? Probably, I need new bloodlines and I should have a couple good replacement males in this batch, though I paid more for common colors than I’d like. If I want a specific color I should just order that next time. I don’t have local access to any breeders so shipping is my only option. And I’d rather risk a little cold than overheating the eggs, so time of year is okay too. Overall, I should focus on my 11 happy chicks and not dwell overmuch on the rest of this disaster except what I learned from it.