I'm late to the party, but I'll go ahead and dive in.
Got a bunch of eggs cooking right now. First batch is due to pip new years' eve. Double laced blue barnevelders and BLRWs. Just got some lemon cuckoo orpington eggs today that will go in tomorrow, and another batch of BLRWs that are still floating out in the postal system nightmare 7 days after they were shipped.
My incubation tries this last spring ended with some pretty dismal results. I averaged one chick hatched per dozen eggs I purchased/set. Built a new incubator and bought a couple much more sensitive temp and humidity monitoring devices and so far so good this time. I think shipping in these colder temps has even helped a bit as well. My biggest problem with shipped eggs in may was fragmented, rolling air cells. At least half the eggs I received had shattered air cells. This go 'round it hasn't been nearly so bad. More like 1/8 of my total eggs have had rolling air cells. Think maybe the colder temps are keeping the white thicker and resisting the air cell damage that way? Hmm, just a thought.
Got a bunch of eggs cooking right now. First batch is due to pip new years' eve. Double laced blue barnevelders and BLRWs. Just got some lemon cuckoo orpington eggs today that will go in tomorrow, and another batch of BLRWs that are still floating out in the postal system nightmare 7 days after they were shipped.
My incubation tries this last spring ended with some pretty dismal results. I averaged one chick hatched per dozen eggs I purchased/set. Built a new incubator and bought a couple much more sensitive temp and humidity monitoring devices and so far so good this time. I think shipping in these colder temps has even helped a bit as well. My biggest problem with shipped eggs in may was fragmented, rolling air cells. At least half the eggs I received had shattered air cells. This go 'round it hasn't been nearly so bad. More like 1/8 of my total eggs have had rolling air cells. Think maybe the colder temps are keeping the white thicker and resisting the air cell damage that way? Hmm, just a thought.