No development?

[Loralye]

Hi there,

I am a newbie and just need a little bit of advice. I put a deposit on 5 mottled houdan eggs & 3 silkie eggs 6 months ago. On March 29th I picked them up and started incubating in a Brinsea Mini Advance.

The temp is good, the humidity is usually around 55%, I've been hand rotating 5 times a day, alternating directions (there was a piece missing from the incubator and I didn't bother ordering it). I have been doing everything to the best of my ability. It is now day 8, my son and I candled using the Brinsea candler and ovascope that was lent to us and there appears to be no development in any of the 8 eggs.

(The eggs should be fertile from the nursery....2 of the houdan eggs were 9 days old according to the dates she wrote on them....the rest were within 7 days. I was called by the nursery on the day I was picking up my eggs and was told that the silkie hens had stopped laying so she only had 1 silkie egg for me from earlier in the week, but she found 2 more laid before I came to pickup so I ended up with my 3 at the last minute....)

I candled a couple of eggs on day 4, my son an I were eager, and we were careful, but nothing.... we waited, then on day 8 there is still no veining, nothing... I can kind of see a faint dark blob separate from the yolk in a couple of these photos, but I think I'm just imagining things. From everything I have read online I should see something in at least some of them, but all I see are air sacs and yolk moving around. I've attached photos, the darker image is a silkie egg. Do you think I should discard at this point and start over? One person I talked to said to wait until day 10, but at day 8 there's still nothing and I'd like to just start a new batch and save some time.
So disappointing

Thoughts?

 

[Pyxis]

They are not developing Maybe they were older than you were told.

My only other thought is, did you double check with a calibrated thermometer to make sure your temperature really was 99.5 degrees? Sometimes the incubators are off, but usually that's not an issue with Brinseas.

 

[Loralye]

They are not developing Maybe they were older than you were told.

My only other thought is, did you double check with a calibrated thermometer to make sure your temperature really was 99.5 degrees? Sometimes the incubators are off, but usually that's not an issue with Brinseas.

I tend to overthink and worry so I had 2 different thermometers and hydrometers inside before I set the eggs to confirm that the temp was what the Brinsea was claiming and that the humidity was dialed in. Everything checked out. My humidity was a little high for the first couple of days, around 60% but would have averaged out lower due to opening to turn. What are the odds that all eggs from the nursery ended up infertile? Not a single one developing...seems so weird. The other thing I thought was that it was about a 45 minute drive home after I picked up the eggs, the road was a bit bumpy, but they were in a carton, wrapped in tissue, and cushioned on a large coat on my lap.... Shipped eggs experience jostling around probably worse and still some would develop.

 

[Pyxis]

I tend to overthink and worry so I had 2 different thermometers and hydrometers inside before I set the eggs to confirm that the temp was what the Brinsea was claiming and that the humidity was dialed in. Everything checked out. My humidity was a little high for the first couple of days, around 60% but would have averaged out lower due to opening to turn. What are the odds that all eggs from the nursery ended up infertile? Not a single one developing...seems so weird. The other thing I thought was that it was about a 45 minute drive home after I picked up the eggs, the road was a bit bumpy, but they were in a carton, wrapped in tissue, and cushioned on a large coat on my lap.... Shipped eggs experience jostling around probably worse and still some would develop.

High humidity for a little bit wouldn't hurt anything. If you're certain the temperature was 99.5 F, then my best guess is that either you were sold very old eggs, or they weren't fertile to begin with.