My frustration with shipped eggs!!

[insiderart]

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Here ya go.

 

[ZZsBabiez]

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I'm ashamed at how much money I've spent on shipped eggs.. so I'll leave that part out.

I do know the "learning curve" very well though.
I agree with all the rest of your post Insiderart except this part..
There are a lot of them that make it to day 18 and in perfect conditions still don't hatch.. Nature knows better than we do.. I just don't think it's all your fault when they don't hatch. Some, yes, but all?? no..

What we call "perfect" conditions are still artificial.. the real experts are out in the coop.

I wish you the best.. I've got a couple more Seramas goin in the hatcher Friday.. and Some EEs goin in Sunday..

edited for spelling

 

[insiderart]

Well now I agree to an extent. Perhaps I didn't explain myself well enough. If say perhaps one or two don't make it, or even half don't pip out (though I think this may be stretching it a bit) then maybe something went wrong in the egg. But if 10 make it to day 18, 19, 20 and none pip out, then I think it's all on me. Obviously I've done something horribly wrong.

 

[waibel zoo]

Explain a loose air cell to me. I candled today eggs that were 5 days old because I had the bator open for another reason. I have 6/6 with dark blobs, but when I rotate the egg the aircell rotates too. Is that a loose air cell?

 

[insiderart]

If you are candling, and and you tip the egg on it's side and then you see a pocket of air also travel down the side rather than staying at the large end. That's a broken air cell. Some people have recommended incubating broken air cells in egg cartons large end up.

I like the egg cartons because I tip the whole incubator rather than opening it up. But as it turns out, if there is a loose air cell it does have a chance of developing and hatching by using that system.

 

[bloomnbeauty]

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Last year I tried and tried to hatch Silkies from eggs and the only one that ever hatched was deformed and died. I finally ordered hatchery birds and to date I have had 11 broodys from them this year! They make the best brooders in the world!!

 

[dancingbear]

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Maybe not. Some times it's the breed or cross, there are some with lethal genes that cause death at various stages of development, some even as late as the pip.

I have a partial list in a book, Gail Damerow's Chicken Health Handbook.

Dark Cornish: short-leg gene can cause death at time of hatch, chicks have bulging eyes, short wings and short beaks.

New Hampshire: Death in 20th and 21st day of incubation, signs are crooked necks, short upper beaks, and shriveled leg muscles.

Barnevelder: Death occurs in last days of incubation. Beak shows "Donald Duck Syndrome", upper beak curled up, lower beak curled down.

This is only a partial list. You might want to google "lethal genes whatever-breed-you're-hatching" and see if this may be at least part of the problem.

Some of these defects may not be as easy to recognize as you may think, if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Fr example, chick beaks and wings look short anyway, I'm not sure I'd recognize what's too short. It's quite possible that a person could do an eggtopsy, think the chick was perfectly formed, and not recognize defects. (Is it a crooked neck or rigor mortis?)

My main problem with poor hatches, was slightly too low temp, by about a half degree, and humidity problems, compounded by damaged shipped eggs.

This hatch, I have 3 of my own EE eggs in there, with the 4 remaining shipped Dorking eggs. 1 EE hatched last night, the next this morning, and the 3rd is nearly out now. None of the Dorkings have pipped yet. After the EE's dry, I'll take them out, and give the Dorkings another day or two. But I already know that if these guys fail to hatch, it's not because I screwed them up.

 

[dancingbear]

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How were they packed?

If you're getting broken eggs, odds are good that there's a problem with the packing. People often think they're doing a good job packing, take great care at it, but don't realize that if the eggs can move at all, inside the package, they may break, scramble, or have broken or damaged air cells.

Parcels are machine sorted, and those machines can't read, it doesn't matter what's on the box. A well-marked box (I put "Live Embryos" and cute photos on mine) can get better handling during the brief time it's actually handled by people, so that's still worth doing, but at some point it's going on conveyor belts, where it will get dropped about three feet, from one belt to another, and at the end land in a drum, with other boxes falling on top of it. I did get some very well packed eggs from Seriousbill, (Delawares) and got 7 healthy chicks, (they're abut 10 or 11 weeks old now, and gorgeous!) would have had more, but I really did have 'bator issues that time, some temp spikes, and humidity problems.

It also helps to reduce shipping distance, if you can find a source closer to home. Eggs from Ohio to KY, will likely fare better than eggs from WA to KY, for example. I had some from Louisiana that got tossed around very badly. First packing job not as good as it could have been, but the seller really though he had done a good job. He sent replacements for part of the shipment, at no charge, not even shipping, and wrapped them much better the 2nd time. They still had damaged air cells, but none broke, and the air cells weren't ruptured, like before. I still got a zero hatch, though.