Setting eggs July 6th. Need some hatching buddies. Lets have some fun!

[Stephanie739]

So does increasing the humidity cause the babies to generate more heat?

 

[ChickenGrit]

I have one that looks like the second picture of day 10. Dark on end with a darker spot that I can see in it. Some of the others just look dark at the one end. I'm hoping my candling is just not powerful enough.

I also have some that look pretty clear. I expect these are no good at this point.

 

[DraigAthar]

I've got 14 out of 20 that are developing. I took the infertile ones out of the incubator today, so just the 14 good ones are in there now. One of them may be a quitter already, it started developing but it may just be a blood ring now. It's the one egg with a misplaced air cell, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's a quitter.

Anyway, ChickenGrit I had a similar problem when I tried candling my first hatch. In the end, a bright candling light worked wonders and now I can see the embryos swimming around in there, even through brown egg shells. I went to home depot and stood in the flashlight aisle reading all of the packages. I picked a flashlight that had a very high number listed for lumens (light output) but that was also a LED flashlight (so it would not heat the egg up when I candle). The one I wound up buying cost about $20 but it was totally worth it. Super bright little LED flashlight and I can see everything going on inside the egg!

Amy

 

[DraigAthar]

So does increasing the humidity cause the babies to generate more heat?

Not that I am aware of. Increasing the humidity causes the egg to lose moisture less quickly, causing the air cell to grow more slowly. You have to find the right humidity so the egg loses moisture at about the right rate. If the egg loses too much moisture the chick may not be able to hatch out. If the eggs loses too little moisture, the chick may drown when it tries to hatch. There's a lot of wiggle room, all things considered, but too much exposure to either extreme (too little or too much humidity) can be a disaster for the little guys.

Amy

 

[diana_of_the_dunes]

How long can a broody stay off her eggs and have them still be viable? My hen somehow managed to get out of the area I had sectioned off, and she was away from the nest for about 3 hours (though she wasn't "locked out" for that long; she just didn't go back right away). The temps outside are in the 90s...

 

[DraigAthar]

How long can a broody stay off her eggs and have them still be viable? My hen somehow managed to get out of the area I had sectioned off, and she was away from the nest for about 3 hours (though she wasn't "locked out" for that long; she just didn't go back right away). The temps outside are in the 90s...

3 hours shouldn't be a problem, especially not at those ambient temps. There's a great article about cooling on Brinsea's website, some studies show that periodic cooling during incubation actually improves your hatch: http://www.brinsea.com/cooling.html If you click through to read the whole research article, it's pretty fascinating.

Amy

p.s. it does depend on where in the incubation the eggs are. they are more sensitive to too much cooling in the early days, not so much later on.

 

[AZ Birds]

hmm oh well too late now. I got the idea from a few posts on here. I used duct tape on a previous hatch and that didn't work. I have since read that duct tape is acidic. I wonder if it would have made it anyway without any help...

I just had a horrible temperature spike anyway.....oh I hope they make it through this.. ugh

i hope they do to. i had 2 horrible chicken hatches already with 4 of like 30 something eggs hatched. hope i have better luck on quail eggs.

 

[Danielle2017]

My three duck eggs all have a little duck swimming in them. I thought one wasn't growing at first, but I was so wrong. All three look good.

 

[AZ Birds]

think i will candle my quail eggs tonight. last time i couldnt see much.

 

[Stephanie739]

i hope they do to. i had 2 horrible chicken hatches already with 4 of like 30 something eggs hatched. hope i have better luck on quail eggs.

Thanks! My first hatch a few weeks ago was fantastic, 23 little babies. I was so happy. This attempt was going smooth, no problems at all, until this very bad spike on day 16. I increased the humidity, and the temp shot way up...is there a connection??? Sadly I wasn't checking the incubator as often as the first hatch (all the time!) so the temp spike wasn't caught quickly like the spikes in my first hatch. I did candle a few shortly after the spike, and might look at some more tonight. I saw movement in a couple of them. Lockdown is tomorrow

Good luck on your hatch