My first shipped eggs! An incubation adventure

[sumi]

Great pic! BTW the air cell is in the wrong end of the egg.... It should be in the fat end.... Put them fat end up in the cartons at a 45* angle and tilt them through 90* in the opposite direction when it comes to turning them. They are still early in development, judging by the pic, so you should have enough time to correct this. Up your humidity a bit too, that air cell looks a bit too big for now. Keep it at around 50-55% for now and let's keep an eye on it. I don't suppose you weighed the eggs prior to setting them? An egg should lose about 12% of it's weight in moisture during incubation, which is another good way to monitor air cell grwoth and humidity. Here is an illustration showing the recommended growth as well:

 

[spotsplus]

How exciting! I always found it extra cool to have 2nd and 3rd generations Keep us updated!

 

[PrairieChickens]

Great pic! BTW the air cell is in the wrong end of the egg.... It should be in the fat end.... Put them fat end up in the cartons at a 45* angle and tilt them through 90* in the opposite direction when it comes to turning them. They are still early in development, judging by the pic, so you should have enough time to correct this. Up your humidity a bit too, that air cell looks a bit too big for now. Keep it at around 50-55% for now and let's keep an eye on it. I don't suppose you weighed the eggs prior to setting them? An egg should lose about 12% of it's weight in moisture during incubation, which is another good way to monitor air cell grwoth and humidity. Here is an illustration showing the recommended growth as well:

Thanks for the input, but I can reassure you that the aircell is on the correct end of the egg. I candled from the bottom in order to avoid inverting the egg, and since the light is so bright and the shell so translucent, it worked well.

The aircells -are- growing too fast for my liking, though you can't see their development when I candle from below. I've already increased the humidity and will let it run a little high for a few days before bringing it back down to normal.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Here's the same egg being candled from above. I wasn't able to candle it like this last night, because the intensity of the light actually washed out the photo. Since it's daytime now and the ambient light is higher, it actually makes it easier to see the embryo when candled from above--go figure? The eggs are SO easy to candle, that it's easy to overdo the light when I'm trying to photograph the embryos--it's actually easier for me to photograph embryos in dark-shelled eggs because they don't contrast so starkly with the ambient lighting.

 

[jcbrownacu]

I'm following along with your progress. I'm just a couple days behind you. How many of your shipped eggs are doing well?

 

[PrairieChickens]

I'm following along with your progress. I'm just a couple days behind you. How many of your shipped eggs are doing well?

My husband and I counted 8 out of 13 that are for sure developing, and then I saw development in a 9th one today. (The egg is much bigger than the others, so it took longer for the veins to show up where I could see them, I suppose.) I've only had one early quitter so far among the shipped eggs.

 

[sumi]

That's good!

The embryos are looking great. Keep us posted.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Looks like two shipped eggs have quit already. I'm not terribly surprised based on what I'd read about shipped eggs. Hopefully the remaining eggs continue to go strong. One odd thing I've noticed is that a couple of embryos look like they started late. While the others are on target for day 7, they look more like they're on day 4. I've never seen such a thing when incubating, but I've rarely had eggs that were so easy to candle at this stage.

 

[Bryam]

Interesting! Keep us posted!

 

[jcbrownacu]

Here's hoping for no more quitters! I hope my are ok. Ive had some incubator issues. Guess Thursday/Friday will be the day ill find out!