Reasons for fertile eggs not developing?

[Gypsy07]

Another forum I'm on, somebody asked a question about fertility. Eggs from their own birds. Said they weren't developing in the incubator and sometimes they were getting only one developing egg out of a whole batch.

Poeple gave various advice about feed, trimming tail feathers and checking the males were actually treading. Then the OP mentioned that he gave eggs to someone else, and they all developed. So it looks like the eggs ARE fertile, and that there's a problem in the incubator.

I said I thought the most likely cause of known fertile eggs not developing at all would be a temp spike in the first couple of days that killed them off before they even had a chance to start developing.

Is there any other cause that anyone can think of?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Don't you love it when you get some additional information like that and the whole perspective of the question changes.

What might cause that? How is he storing the eggs before starting incubation? Temperatures, how long, and all that. Not everyone stores them the same.

Has he calibrated his thermometer? I don't care what excuses are given, if you have not calibrated your thermometer, you don't know what the actual temperature is. Any attempt at explaining otherwise is defensive blather.

I'm not sure what he means by developing. Is he talking about no veining at all or that they just get to a certain stage then quit? Not all of us use the same terminology.

 

[Gypsy07]

Yes Ridgerunner, very funny to suddenly be given the additional information and have the whole focus of the problem instantly change from being the birds' fertility to the owner's storage and incubation methods.

I also thought about storage conditions but figured incubation temp itself was most likely the problem. From what was written, I'm assuming the problem is no veining at all. Just because most people wouldn't have called it a fertility problem if the eggs had shown any sign of development. But you're right, we don't all use the same terminology and that's something else I should ask about to make sure.

So... the likely problems are 1. storage conditions and 2. incubation temps.

I couldn't think of anything else going on in the incubator apart from high temps that would cause total non development of fertile eggs. Even if they were all riddled with bacteria, you'd expect to see blood rings and/or bacterial growth.

But now you mention it, I suppose I should also ask how he or she is judging the non-development. I don't know if the eggs are being cracked open or maybe just candled inexpertly. For all I really know, they could be DIS late on and just being thrown away as non-hatchers which are then being called non-developers.

Thanks for helping me through the logical thought process!