Pea Eggs Scheduled to Hatch?

[frenchblackcopper]

99% of the time if the chick is not strong enough to pip,,and even if you help it partially it will not be strong enough to survive.I've had chicks that pipped and did nothing else for over 24 hours,,so I helped them,Some to almost rolling them out of the egg completly only to find they are not strong enough to hold their heads high or even off the tray bottom.Maybe it's natures way of weeding out the weak? Either way,do not feel badly.Chances are if you wasn't there to even incubate the egg,the egg would get broken or not even incubated by peahens.Sure,they will set but I'm referring to a scenerio if you have 3-4 hens in a pen,one goes to setting and then a hen lays an egg 2 weeks later.Even if it did get incubated by the peahen already setting,she would leave the nest long before this last egg was ready to hatch.Or if no hens was setting the egg would go to waste anyway.Betty,,I know your feelings are coming into play here but please remember every egg you decide to incubate has way more of a chance than if left in the pen awaiting a peahen to beome broody and incubate 26 days with no troubles.There is no way a peahen can sit on all eggs she lays each year.And if she does decide to set her egg production will stop.If she was to set maybe she would have 8 eggs under her and not all of them would hatch so say 6 chicks might be her total yearly contribution.The other scenerio is if all eggs are taken and she lays all season,maybe a total of 30 eggs your chances of hatching more than 6 is a lot better than her hatching 6 outta 8 eggs laid total.Peas are TOUGH,,and it's very,very easy to either throw in the towel,or go broke buying shipped hatching peafowl eggs.I about went broke but didn't throw in the towel.I thought this year by being able to incubate my own eggs it would be easier to some extent.When you collect 12 eggs one night and 15 the next for several weeks in a row,and only have room for 75 eggs all at once,that alone presents a challenge.I can fill my bator up in a week and a half.Then what do I do with eggs being collected the other 2 1/2 weeks until I have room to add more? The ONLY EGGS all season I havn't incubated is the last of my still laying BSSP's which hasn't stopped completely laying yet.I havn't totalled up everything but when I knew my bator was going to be full is when I offered eggs for sale.Next spring I'm getting a bigger Brinsea because I will have 5 more hens laying next year,and I'm sure my 2 year old hens from this season will have much higher egg laying numbers next year.Plus I'm still wanting Cameos and a straight Purple b/s pen and possibly whites. I'd much rather hatch them all myself than sell eggs.

 

[Lil Zoo]

I'm not much for shipping the eggs either. Quite popular I think use to be good but with more automation in shipping their is no gentle handling of anything. Today you consider yourself lucky if package comes undamaged. When I was a child almost everything was ordered through the catalog and rarely found something broke. Caring people touched the packages then, today they are dropped from one conveyor belt to another, dumped in large tubs and dumped out.
I was really getting down on hatching the eggs. Having the egg be infertile, stop in the beginning is one thing.,,, but to see perfectly formed baby peachicks that didn't even pip one after another just was driving me nuts. Then the ones that did pip were shrink wrapped. I saved 2 by helping out but choosing the time is so questionable. Putting the red plugs back in incubator and having 2 babies gives me a bit of hope. This winter I have a project of building a wooden incubator. I'll probably have to experiment with it next spring, also

. Everyone has been so helpful trying to get this figured out. I was just listening to another peafowl hatch-er explaining how Craig Hopkins was helping them with the venting of their incubator in dry weather to get their hatches right. I took the vents out as recommended in instruction booklet for bigger eggs. It was exceptionally dry all spring and summer here so I called home to have them put back in. On the way home a week later got a call we had a peachick and another pipped. Not a good showing for all the eggs I tried to incubate this season, but a sliver of hope for next season. Stan (DH) jokes I kill them watching them so close. I'm trying to remind myself that I rather plunged into this adventure quite quickly. I think I have to many hens for my space right now, too. I seen places with a lot less, but my main objective in the beginning was for the enjoyment of their beauty. I want them to look their best and be healthy first to show them off.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

The Brinsea manual as well as several other hatching sources says that during incubation an egg should lose between 11-13% of it's weight is all.This is accomplished by first weighing each egg,then recording the weight and then take weights during incubation to see if your on track.Of course the higher you keep the inside humidity that surrounding air has less ability to absorb more moisture and dry out the egg.The lower you keep the humidity,the more weight the egg can lose.
I don't pay near as much attention to rh as I used to 3 years ago.I set mine at 45% and the last 3-4 days I close all the vents and watch as it gets into the upper 50-lower 60% range.One well known breeder told me he sets his at 50% the entire time,and never changes it.Shrink wrapping of the inner membrane is possible because the chicks natural body temp,and air surrounding the outside of the membrane which is very thin to begin with.Imagine a wet piece of paper inside a box that is 99.6 degrees,Then consider the same scenerio with the same warm air being circulated around by a fan.Either way,the warm temp will dry the paper in time.
Experimenting in trying to increase-decrease rh and knowing if the direct hatch rate is 100% attributable to just changes in humidity would be very hard to substantiate.Diets,fertility of both the hen and peacock,weather temps and changes,and was the egg laid in dirt and rolled around before being collected? Was it laid late at night and was exposed to the next days full heat and sunlite before getting collected? If you could somehow know before incubating if the egg was indeed fertilized and all conditions were the same after laying,,it would help.I hold eggs sometimes 3 days in my newly aquired wine cooler and set eggs twice each week,so naturally some eggs are older than others and have been chilled several days compared to the eggs I gathered the same nite they was put into the bator which was never cooled.I'm sure millions of our past tax dollars was spent studying hatching eggs artificially so the 11-13% weight loss must be what ones to shoot for.

 

[Yoda]

Sad news. My little charcoal pea chick died yesterday. He was only a couple weeks old if that. I went to work and the little stinker was eating and drinking, when I got home he was gone

I still have one egg that went in on the 12th and is due to hatch any day now so we will see what that ones ends up being.

 

[zazouse]

Soo soo sorry for your loss..

come on hatchling

 

[kuntrygirl]

Sad news. My little charcoal pea chick died yesterday. He was only a couple weeks old if that. I went to work and the little stinker was eating and drinking, when I got home he was gone I still have one egg that went in on the 12th and is due to hatch any day now so we will see what that ones ends up being.

Awwwwwwwwwwww. Poor baby. So sorry for your loss.

 

[Lil Zoo]

So sad. Crossing my fingers. Keep us posted.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Yoda,,Charcoals presents their own challenges which is a very long uphill climb as we both know.I'm NOT giving up even after hatching 1 peachick from my Charcoal pen this summer and your not giving up either.We're in this battle together,thru thick and mostly thin,,but 2013 has to be a better year for me.I look at it as if I hatch 2 chicks next year that's a 100% improvement,,yes???? I know it's not raising the bar much,but there has to be a baseline someplace and mine is 1.

 

[Yoda]

Ok the last egg did not make it. The chick pipped but seems his beak was dried to the shell - hmmmm humidity was ok, but seems to have a lot of orangey fliud, maybe yoke sac broke. Looked like it was a black shoulder. Checked the little charcoal out and it had a piece of shaving in it's throat so I am thinking it choked. Poor thing, I wish I was home to help it out but unfortunately I wasn't. Next year I hope is better for you Frenchy! I cannot complain cause I sold my eggs this year and only had 3 charcoal eggs in the bator that were fertile and all 3 did hatch. The last ones she laid were not fertile as end of season was here. I think I did good. I am getting him another white eye hen for next year

So Hades will have 2 wives hehehe

 

[frenchblackcopper]

Yoda,,I'm not complaining.I just throw all my frustrations on Wild Thang.I'll keep my 3 IB B/S hens split to charcoal in with Kingsford next year,,may take his two pieds hens away from him.Btw,,his new train is starting to grow in and the white eyes are very,very noticable and theres TONS of them coming in.Pea Palace will be Picture Palace next spring with 8 males with full trains for the first time.Three years is a long,long wait but it's all good karma. I've gave-devoted a lot so now in 2013 it's coming full circle with rewards that will be in those silent smiles on my face when I do chores.Roadtrip,my BSSP male that came from Bigcreekpoultry will be breathtaking,,and my purple b/s silver pied male is a portrait in the making as well.Then I have the "Thang",,,the Frankenstein of the bunch.