Serama Eggs?

[Woods_Woman]

What's the trick to these little one's? Anything different I should know about. I was shipped 4 but only one proved to be fertile, I checked for viability on day 17 before lock down, and thought it looked good. Here we are day 22 and nothing going on, I am thinking it's a dead one.

 

[IcedMochaChick]

I'm a newbie, but I've tried hatching the seramas a few times. Atually, I have eggs hatching right now. From what I've read, they don't ship as well as other eggs. Some people say they start hatching on day 19, others say 21. They've all started hatching on day 19 for me. I keep the temp between 99.5 and 101. I try to keep the humidity around 50%, then bump it to 70% for the hatch. They still seem to loose a lot of moisture. Someone with more experience will probably be more help to you. Good luck

 

[Woods_Woman]

Thanks for the info. I'd love to hatch some, but no luck so far on my first try, better luck I suppose for the future.

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

the secret with serama eggs is the less you handle them in the incubator the better, I never candle till day 18. 50% humidity,is what I use. With shipped it really depends on how they where packed and how the PO handled them. I've shipped serama and received them with great hatches on both ends. and serama are the most fertile in winter and early spring

 

[BluegrassSeramas]

You never know how the PO handles them, but that being said they are just a total enigma IMO, lol.

I have shipped birds across the U.S. and there have been great hatches.

I have carried eggs from my pens 100 feet to the incubator and had terrible hatches.

Sometimes I cant contain myself and candle a LOT and have great hatches, sometimes I never candle until the end and have bad ones.

OR vice versa.

Some hatch on 19 and some on 21. Think it has a lot to do with temps.

Some stop developing after 10 days and some stop when they should pip.

I have yet to figure out the secrets of the incubator with serama eggs .

Here is the only secret that I have to offer:

Silkie cochin cross super broodies!! lol
Nearly 100% every time!
Sometimes I have a broody hen sit on eggs for 10 days, then I take them and put them in the incubator and give her more eggs.
I do this 2 or 3 times so she only sits for 20ish days and then I break her up
----- or let her hatch the 2nd batch if she is eating and drinking and keeping weight.

Much better hatch rates!

 

[Woods_Woman]

I wish I had a broody, but mine aren't even laying yet...This Black Cochin I hope will brood in the future..sure would be sweet.

 

[Akane]

I candle my eggs starting on day 4 and probably every couple days after that. I still have good hatches and have not had many serama embryos quit. The big thing with serama eggs seems to be their tendency to have completely messed air sacs after shipping. If you tilt them around a lot the air sac slides around doing damage. Like I just said in another thread with damaged air sacs you want them upright. Keep them upright the whole incubation period. A turner is good here but I hatched a bunch of seramas in tilted cartons before I got a turner and both sets 100% developed and made it to hatch day. Still with me candling every few days cause I couldn't wait. Also they do sometimes hatch on day 19. Not always but it's best to be prepared and it does no harm to stop turning eggs a day or 2 early. I've had to do it many times when I was going somewhere and couldn't wait until day 18. I stop turning and raise humidity on day 17 for seramas just in case. 48hours before they are going to hatch should actually be plenty. They break the membrane 24hours before they hatch and so 24hours to soften it from the higher humidity seems fine to me and so far hatches out my seramas pretty well.

Other than that how well your serama eggs do is mostly in the hands of the seller. You need fresh eggs shipped quickly and packaged well from fully mature birds laying fertile eggs. Most of my bad serama hatches were because the person had few seramas and some eggs were too old (that will also contribute to air sac damage in shipping) or the eggs were from young birds with some not even fertile. Everybody with a pair of seramas wants to get online and sell eggs as soon as possible so there are lots of pullet eggs being collected for an entire week just to get 6 eggs and then shipped. Those just don't do well.

 

[Woods_Woman]

Good info...Thank you I will keep all of this in mind for next try.