Seramas Hard to Hatch...

[DON956]

Why is it so hard to hatch Serama eggs? Mid November I ordered 30 eggs to incubate, out of the 20 eggs 18 developed midway. At 18 days only 5 show signs of life and went to lockdown 21days came along and nothing hatched. Still waited two more days and nothing, checked the eggs and chicks fully developed but just decided to stay inside. My Serama flock started laying eggs toward the end of Nov so I gathered 15 eggs in a week and put them on the bator on Dec 7th 12 eggs were fertile and again by midway only 4 showed life I'm in lockdown right now and due date is tomorrow the 28th hopefully they'll hatch but got my doubts since I heard Seramas are a tough cookie to hatch, why is that? Any Serama hatchers around here?

 

[cavemanrich]

Has your incubator been hatching other varieties of eggs well ??? Just a thought.

 

[DON956]

Has your incubator been hatching other varieties of eggs well ???   Just a thought. 

No. This are my first hatches, just bought the bator along with the Serama eggs but been hatching quail eggs on a homemade incubator I built, but bought this one specially for the seramas.

 

[cavemanrich]

Maybe someone will give you some good points and advice. It is a puzzling thing that they live partly and then don't make it to the end. Try to incubate some other eggs if possible. That way you will find out if its is the process or the serama eggs.

Maybe your settings are not ideal???
I used to have serama hens in the past. I actually am looking for one this spring. If you were not soo far away, I would certainly purchase from you. The closest that I found was 150 mile round trip... I am still looking.

 

[Hennypenny15]

Maybe someone will give you some good points and advice. It is a puzzling thing that they live partly and then don't make it to the end. Try to incubate some other eggs if possible. That way you will find out if its is the process or the serama eggs.

Maybe your settings are not ideal???
I used to have serama hens in the past. I actually am looking for one this spring. If you were not soo far away, I would certainly purchase from you. The closest that I found was 150 mile round trip... I am still looking.

 

[Hennypenny15]

Why is it so hard to hatch Serama eggs? Mid November I ordered 30 eggs to incubate, out of the 20 eggs 18 developed midway. At 18 days only 5 show signs of life and went to lockdown 21days came along and nothing hatched. Still waited two more days and nothing, checked the eggs and chicks fully developed but just decided to stay inside. My Serama flock started laying eggs toward the end of Nov so I gathered 15 eggs in a week and put them on the bator on Dec 7th 12 eggs were fertile and again by midway only 4 showed life I'm in lockdown right now and due date is tomorrow the 28th hopefully they'll hatch but got my doubts since I heard Seramas are a tough cookie to hatch, why is that? Any Serama hatchers around here?

Hello, I have Serama too. Doing the hatch-a-long so should have a January 1st hatch date. Started with 18 eggs: 2 not fertile and 1 started and stopped very early, 1 stopped by day 14. Have 14 in now but don't know how many will hatch. Last time put in 8 and had 9 hatch. I run temp. at 99.5 and only open to add water and on day 14 to check. I also have automatic turner which I take out at lock down. In my opinion; I think you have to be very careful to handle with as little jiggling as possible, keep time out of incubator as short as possible, and make sure your water level for humidity is where it is suppose to be. Since Serama need warmer place during winter because of feather type perhaps eggs to suffer more easily from cold. Just my thoughts. I am generally over cautious so maybe that helps with the Serama.

 

[Hennypenny15]

Maybe someone will give you some good points and advice. It is a puzzling thing that they live partly and then don't make it to the end. Try to incubate some other eggs if possible. That way you will find out if its is the process or the serama eggs.

Maybe your settings are not ideal???
I used to have serama hens in the past. I actually am looking for one this spring. If you were not soo far away, I would certainly purchase from you. The closest that I found was 150 mile round trip... I am still looking.

I live close to Elkhart Indiana just 4 miles from toll road. I have two pullets I would let go that were born 8/15/15.

 

[dekel18042]

No. This are my first hatches, just bought the bator along with the Serama eggs but been hatching quail eggs on a homemade incubator I built, but bought this one specially for the seramas.

Sometimes it is hard to know an exact reason, but here are some thoughts since the incubator you used has never successfully hatched a clutch if I am reading you right. Shipped eggs are often (usually?) more problematic than your own or local eggs so it may not be an incubator problem. I've had dismal results with shipped eggs, so much so that I'm contemplating never doing it again. Yet hatch rates with my own eggs in the same incubator are near 100%.
Before you try shipped eggs, you may want to try your own eggs or local eggs to see what happens.
Then if you know someone who has been successful at egg hatching, maybe you could split an order with them to see if there is a difference in incubators.
Not sure how much this helps but I handle my eggs very seldom. Once they are in the incubator I generally don't touch or candle them until day 14 then again at day 18 to see which are going into lockdown. If I had eggs I knew were delicate, I might wait and do the lockdown day 18 candling only.
Once I know an egg isn't going to hatch, I will open it up to see if I can figure out what went wrong and when.
Good luck, I know how devastating it can be when a hoped for hatching doesn't go as planned.

 

[Bryam]

Yup, Seramas are much harder to hatch in general. Keep at it, best of luck!

 

[DON956]

First day of lockdown on a set of 10 Serama eggs of my flock. Temp 99.5-100 Humidity 65% on my homemade full size fridge bator and first pip popped out. All 10 looked viable in candling last night.