refrigerated eggs for hatching

[A roo or two]

I thought I read on here somewhere as long as it wasn't over 104 it should be okay? Hopefully you lucked out. When are they due?

 

[OzarkCountryGirl]

Thanks, but unfortunately the temp was well over, and none survived.

But...I'm giving it another go. I've currently got two more batches of refrigerated eggs in...and THIS time, I set them out of the way to where no one will accidentally bump the thermostat. For one batch, it's at Day 13 and out of 22 eggs, two didn't even begin to develop, and two more developed blood rings early on. But there are 17 that I can see that are developing right on schedule. There is another one with a shell that's just too dark for me to determine, so there may actually be 18 that are viable. Of the 17 that I can see developing, one has a double air sac, which is something I've never seen or heard of before. That egg is extra large and about half again as big as the others, but during candling I saw the embryo moving around inside, and its the same size as its 'bator mates despite the size of its home.

On the 12th (this past Saturday), I put another dozen fridge eggs in an incubator and I can already see veins in some of them. These are mostly Ameraucana, with shell colourings ranging from blue, to green, to olive, with a couple of Welsummer eggs added to the bunch for good measure.

I do have one worry though. It's been raining off and on for the past couple of weeks and I've had to work at keeping the humidity below 55%. There is absolutely no water in the wells, and even though I've been opening the lid a few seconds every day, the humidity is still between between 43% and 53%. I've not had it this high during the first 18 days before, so I'm hoping that it won't cause them to have problems actually hatching.

 

[A roo or two]

Thanks, but unfortunately the temp was well over, and none survived.

But...I'm giving it another go. I've currently got two more batches of refrigerated eggs in...and THIS time, I set them out of the way to where no one will accidentally bump the thermostat. For one batch, it's at Day 13 and out of 22 eggs, two didn't even begin to develop, and two more developed blood rings early on. But there are 17 that I can see that are developing right on schedule. There is another one with a shell that's just too dark for me to determine, so there may actually be 18 that are viable. Of the 17 that I can see developing, one has a double air sac, which is something I've never seen or heard of before. That egg is extra large and about half again as big as the others, but during candling I saw the embryo moving around inside, and its the same size as its 'bator mates despite the size of its home.

On the 12th (this past Saturday), I put another dozen fridge eggs in an incubator and I can already see veins in some of them. These are mostly Ameraucana, with shell colourings ranging from blue, to green, to olive, with a couple of Welsummer eggs added to the bunch for good measure.

I do have one worry though. It's been raining off and on for the past couple of weeks and I've had to work at keeping the humidity below 55%. There is absolutely no water in the wells, and even though I've been opening the lid a few seconds every day, the humidity is still between between 43% and 53%. I've not had it this high during the first 18 days before, so I'm hoping that it won't cause them to have problems actually hatching.

Sorry you lost them all.

Do you have a ceiling fan in that room? I turn my ceiling fan on and it helps pull my humidity down some. I think I even read on here that you can place a fan near the bator and have the air blow across the top or bottom holes and that will help pull the humidity out too.

 

[OzarkCountryGirl]

Thanks for the fan/humidity idea! I do have a room with a ceiling fan in it, but the room temp fluctuates too much to keep this little incubator stable, so next time I'm going to get a small desk fan and see if that will help. Thank goodness this batch is going into lock down tomorrow, so the humidity with this one will no longer be an issue. Right now the humidity is at 46% and that's with having no water in the incubator.

 

[A roo or two]

Thanks for the fan/humidity idea! I do have a room with a ceiling fan in it, but the room temp fluctuates too much to keep this little incubator stable, so next time I'm going to get a small desk fan and see if that will help. Thank goodness this batch is going into lock down tomorrow, so the humidity with this one will no longer be an issue. Right now the humidity is at 46% and that's with having no water in the incubator.

Sure no problem, I know it has worked for me.

Good luck with your hatch!

Humidity acceptance for success has such a wide range. Some people have great results with high humidity and others like it really low.

 

[Ellaluvsbirds]

I have always been told that if you refrigerate eggs it will kill the embryo.

 

[A roo or two]

There are several people on here that have had great success with hatching refrigerated eggs I personally have not tried it yet. I may give it a go on my next incubation.

 

[OzarkCountryGirl]

I have always been told that if you refrigerate eggs it will kill the embryo.

Someone forgot to tell this little one (photo was taken less than 10 minutes ago)...

And the two blue eggs behind it are pipping right at this very moment... and they were expected to hatch this Thursday, so they are actually early!
The eggs were all refrigerated for at least a couple of days before I took them out of the fridge and then just let them set in their cartons for another couple of days before I put them in the incubator.

 

[A roo or two]

Someone forgot to tell this little one (photo was taken less than 10 minutes ago)...

And the two blue eggs behind it are pipping right at this very moment... and they were expected to hatch this Thursday, so they are actually early!
The eggs were all refrigerated for at least a couple of days before I took them out of the fridge and then just let them set in their cartons for another couple of days before I put them in the incubator.

Yay! Congrats!

 

[OzarkCountryGirl]

The last chick has finally hatched. Started out with 22 eggs. I had 2 dozen in the fridge, but someone ate two eggs out of one carton before I decided to hatch them. Regarding the ones that didn't hatch, one for sure was not fertile, one had a crack in it that I didn't notice until it started to smell (and when I went to remove it, it literally exploded all over the incubator - it contained nothing but yellow/green water - yuk!), two stalled the first week, one pipped upside down and I didn't catch it in time to save it (I'm still kicking myself over that), and one just didn't pip at all. So I went into the final week with 18 eggs...16 of which hatched.
All in all, I'd count this as a successful hatch.