New and confused

[Hatchingnovice89]

Hello. I am an educator and was given a little giant incubator and about 30 eggs. After candeling 17 definitely had growth and movement and 2 more were iffy. My first chick hatched on day 22. It took 8 hours from pip to hatch and it is very strong running around. It kicked all the eggs multiple times and even pecked into another egg. I moved the chick to the brooder and it’s doing great. I heard peeping today but no pips. I opened the egg that the chick ended up killing out of morbid curiosity and it was still moist (so I think the humidity was fine) but it hadn’t absorbed its yolk yet. Could these other eggs have been younger before I even put them in the incubator? They were all different breeds.

 

[AudieWarren]

21 days is a general average. I have read about hatching on day 26. Incubating eggs is a real test of patience. Lol I Always want to intervene.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Did you count the days correctly? An egg does not have 24 hours worth of development when you first put it in, you say "1" the day after you start. An easy way to check your counting is that the day of the week you put the eggs in is the day of the week the 21 days are up. If you started on a Sunday, the 21 days are up on a Sunday.

An egg does not take 21 days to hatch. That's the target, the goal. But it is not unusual for eggs to hatch 2 days early or two days late. There are different possible causes for that: heredity, humidity, how and how long the eggs were stored before incubation began, and just basic differences in the eggs. A huge variable is incubating temperature. If the average temperature is warm, they can be early. If it is a bit cool they can be late. How much do you trust your thermometer to know that your temperature was pretty close? I never trust a thermometer unless it has been calibrated.

Is your LG a forced air (has a fan) or still (thermal) air model. In theory it doesn't matter where you take the temperature inside a forced air, the fan should keep the air stirred up. Since warm air rises you can get a pretty big difference in temperatures depending on the elevation where you took it.

It's hard to guess what may be a problem over the internet, sometimes it is difficult when you are actually there. My guess is that your incubating temps may be a tad low.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I agree, there are so many variables but if your count was correct, the first place to look is that temps were cool throughout.

 

[Hatchingnovice89]

I had one hatch on day 22. @Ridgerunner I put them in around 1 on what I counted as day 0.

My confusion is why would one hatch and not the rest when all were cared for and developing well? Could the first one have tumbled the eggs too much? It kicked them around a lot before it was dry enough to take out. Do different breeds take a different amount of time? Or maybe the egg for the one who hatched was a little older before putting in the incubator? For instance if my hatchlin’s egg was already 5 days old and the others were only 1, would that affect hatching time?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Egg storage pre-incubation only affects hatch time by about an hour for each day stored. The longer stored, the longer they take to hatch. Too cool is the likely culprit. There could be many other issues though, but when most of the eggs fail, that narrows it down. Breeder nutrition can have a negative effect, especially this part of the season.
Go through this list to look for possible causes that could apply.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/hatchability-problem-analysis.62956/

 

[aart]

Replied here on 'duplicate' thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...progress-on-others-for-over-24-hours.1260162/

 

[RubyNala97]

Have you candles the other eggs to see if they are still alive? You could post of pics of the other eggs, while candling and we could see how far they progressed.

 

[Hatchingnovice89]

I started candeling a few today to look for movement. I could have sworn I saw movement on the first one. It’s a purple egg. The other 2 I didn’t see any movement. Pretty clear shot of a foot in 2, and is that a ruptured air cell in 3?

 

[Altfrizzle]

Those look a bit small. Looks like low temperatures. Give them more time.