Share your shipped egg incubation stats so we can compare!

[artbykarenehaley]

It's lock down day for us, on our first batch of button quail eggs that we ordered from Burton's Pirogue Aviaries on ebay. I'm interested to see if anyone else is also incubating eggs recently shipped
Stats
Egg source: Burton's Pirogue Aviaries
Species: Button Quail
Origin: Missouri
Destination: Oregon
Shipping condition on arrival: box appeared to be in good condition, eggs were well wrapped. They were placed in a cardboard egg carton, surrounded by sawdust, wrapped inside a bubble mailer, which was placed inside a box padded with more bubble mailers and other packing materials.
Amount ordered: 15

Received: 20, two had hairline cracks in them only detected via candling prior to setting

Amount of eggs set: 18

Time allowed for these eggs to rest: 12 hours

Time and date set: 12:00 am March 12th

Incubator used: Little Giant Forced Air incubator with egg turner, quail rails installed.

Temperature: consistent 99.5 to 100.00 degrees

Humidity: has been between 60% to 70%

Fertility rate: so far all eggs have developed and appear to be alive. 4/18 have egg shells too dark to see through more than the pointy end, but veins are visible even on these dark eggs.

Hatch results: To Be Determined

Other notes: I have incubated eggs before but this is our first time using this incubator. So far it has been doing great. I have tested it with three other thermometers and humidity meters and it's sensor does appear to be reading accurately. It was a birthday present from my husband and I am so excited to hatch these eggs! The incubator is in our dining room which stays around 68 to 70 degrees.

Here's the current status on the quail hatch:
10 hatched without assistance required.
2 had to have assistance.
1 of those two was under developed and it's air sacs had been on the side of the egg instead of the round end.
The other was encased in two membrane layers, and I believe it may have been shrink-wrapped when we took the other chicks out and moved them to the brooder. It survived assistance and is slowly making steps of improvement. I have been feeding it a mixture of Gatorade, water, banana, and egg yolk. It is now attempting to peck at things and is behaving a little more normally, but it's very tired and wants to sleep.

I will include pictures of each chick soon. Each one is different in coloration, some are the same color variety but are individual enough to tell them apart. One of them has a solid black face with stripes on its head and back a creamy greyish belly, it's definitely the most rambunctious and likes to chase finger tips. Haha.

That leaves six eggs. I candled them last night. One showed movement.
Two have egg shells too dark to see through.
Three look like their development halted shortly after I took them out of the egg turner. I will give the dark eggs and the one I could see movement in one or two more days before I remove them.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

Here's another shipped egg incubation experiment, and I'm taking a risk here setting these in an occupied incubator that is currently on lockdown. I had to decide to either let them go bad while waiting for these quail to hatch, or set them. This was due to an error on my part, as I should have requested when I ordered the eggs to have them ship at a later date. I neglected to do so and when the auction ended they were packed and sent. That was my fault. They were shipped promptly and arrived without damage. Here are the stats on these eggs:

Stats
Egg source: Breeder is eBay seller bwi_bow_iwyzalavq

Species and Breed: Standard Chicken, White Faced Black Spanish

Origin location: Virginia

Destination location: Oregon

Shipping condition on arrival: Box was damaged, eggs arrived uncracked. Each egg was wrapped individually in two layers of bubble wrap. Four eggs have saddled air sacs. Two are severe. The rest have air sacs in their proper place.

Amount ordered: 10

Received: 11

Amount of eggs set: 11

Time allowed for these eggs to rest: 24, but they will be unturned for the first few days of incubation. I have had incubations in the past with success where the eggs were set round end up and not turned for the first few days. I am giving these eggs extra time to sit still so their sacs can settle some more, plus the incubator is on lock down for a current clutch of quail eggs.


Time and date set: 11:00 am March 25th 2021

Hatch result: To Be Determined

Incubator used: Little Giant forced air incubator

Temperature: 99.5

Humidity: 70% (set during quail egg lockdown, will be decreased after the quail are removed)

Fertility rate: To be Determined.

Other notes: the eggs are currently set on silicone rings with the rounded end pointed up. After these quail eggs hatch they will be candled and placed on the automatic egg turner with the chicken egg rails. I am attempting a still set, where the first few days I don't move the eggs. Partly because they had a rough ride, partially because I have no other choice due to the incubator being currently occupied. Wish these babies luck! The photos of their parents on the ebay listing shows some gorgeous birds and my son really likes this breed's looks. We plan to keep one chick, and any others will be living on my dad's farm. He saw that I have an incubator and asked me to hatch him some chicks. If this batch is unsuccessful, we will get some eggs locally and start over for him to get his flock going.

Today all the White faced black spanish eggs have been candled and are all developing. I may order more from this seller. I am impressed that all the eggs I have are fertile and developing, although shipping can affect these rates and it's different for everyone.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

Here's the current status on the quail hatch:
10 hatched without assistance required.
2 had to have assistance.
1 of those two was under developed and it's air sacs had been on the side of the egg instead of the round end.
The other was encased in two membrane layers, and I believe it may have been shrink-wrapped when we took the other chicks out and moved them to the brooder. It survived assistance and is slowly making steps of improvement. I have been feeding it a mixture of Gatorade, water, banana, and egg yolk. It is now attempting to peck at things and is behaving a little more normally, but it's very tired and wants to sleep.

I will include pictures of each chick soon. Each one is different in coloration, some are the same color variety but are individual enough to tell them apart. One of them has a solid black face with stripes on its head and back a creamy greyish belly, it's definitely the most rambunctious and likes to chase finger tips. Haha.

That leaves six eggs. I candled them last night. One showed movement.
Two have egg shells too dark to see through.
Three look like their development halted shortly after I took them out of the egg turner. I will give the dark eggs and the one I could see movement in one or two more days before I remove them.

I removed and egg-topsied the remaining six eggs. One of the dark eggs had stopped developing earlier on. The egg with movement had failed to pip and was not developed fully. The rest made it to probably day fourteen?

 

[Queens Chicka]

I removed and egg-topsied the remaining six eggs. One of the dark eggs had stopped developing earlier on. The egg with movement had failed to pip and was not developed fully. The rest made it to probably day fourteen?View attachment 2598122

Thanks for sharing. Keep the updates coming. I’m curious about your chicken eggs. I’m attempting my first hatch and have already messed up big time with a temp spike of 110 for a few hours. It was in the middle of the night. I have 1 out of 7 who have survived. I’m thinking about putting in a second clutch of eggs. They’ll less than 7 days old during lockdown for my one and only survivor.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

Thanks for sharing. Keep the updates coming. I’m curious about your chicken eggs. I’m attempting AA first hatch and have already messed up big time with a temp spike of 110 for a few hours. It was in the middle of the night. I have 1 out of 7 who have survived. I’m thinking about putting in a second clutch of eggs. They’ll less than 7 days old during lockdown for my one and only survivor.

Hi! I was just about to candle and update the white faced black spanish chicken eggs when I found your reply.
I candled them and all but one are developing well despite being in the incubator during a very high humidity stage. I don't know whether or not that information helps you based on your current situation.

Do you have a way of turning them without opening your incubator? At day seven they'll be a little farther along than mine were, and I'd be worried about them sticking to the shell if left in place too long. If I calculate right, your egg will hatch around the same time as mine. I would personally wait, and if I had just one chick hatch I think I'd pick up some chicks that are already hatched to keep it company and start over with fresh eggs in an empty incubator.

I didn't turn my chicken eggs for the first four days that they were incubating, mainly because they were in there during lockdown but also because I've read that setting them stationary for the first three days can help saddled air sacs develop more uniformly. It helped one of them. There are three that still have air sacs that are quite mis shapen. I'm not sure if I would do it this way again or not, I'm waiting to see the outcome haha.

My eggs are due to hatch April 14th, and I'll be updating for sure! Good luck with your incubating and I hope your little survivor makes it!

 

[artbykarenehaley]

As a quick update to the White Faced Black Spanish eggs:
Ten eggs made it to lockdown, with three that still have very saddled air sacs.
One of the eggs that has a normally developed air sac is moving around quite a lot right now! It is Day 20.

 

[LadyLaurelin]

Interested to know how it turned out!

 

[artbykarenehaley]

The results of the White Faced Black Spanish chick hatch are in!
Set: 11
Made it to lock down: 10
Hatched: 7
One chick that hatched was culled due to an exposed spinal column and other deformities.
Currently alive and healthy: 6

The first pip! Day 20.

The same egg rolled itself over. It didn't hatch until day 21.

Noon of day 21. Suddenly there was a lot of activity in the incubator!

The first chick!

More were hatching as the day went on.

These six chicks are all happy and healthy!

WARNING this next section shows the chick with the exposed spinal column and two of the chicks that were dead in the shell. The third dead in shell chick smelled so badly I wouldn't even eggtopsy it. It was so strong the incubator smelled awful.

Chick that hatched live but with exposed spinal chord. It's legs were paralysed and eyes were slightly dislocated. I didn't get a photo of the eyes, this poor chick was in so much pain it was shaking. I had to put it out of its pain.

This chick was dead in it's shell. It developed a short, twisted upper beak and was missing at least one of its eyes, with an enlarged forehead. It's feet were thick and wings very short. What a strange deformity to see.

Other side of the same chick's head.

This chick unfortunately died in it's shell as well. It was malpositioned, and when I removed it from its shell I found that it was aligned with rump and yolk on the airsack. I am assuming it died in it's shell due to this.

All in all, the live chicks are so cute and lively and I'm quite happy with the results, six out of eleven seems pretty typical for shipped eggs.

As for sex of the chicks, they appear to all be female based on vent sexing and wing feathers sexing. It has been a long time since I have done either, so that remains to be seen!

 

[Crazy Duck Lover]

Stats: Hatch 1 (Hatched 4/18)
Egg source: eBay Seller “thevipofdbz”

Species and Breed: Duck, Mixed breeds

Origin location: Virginia

Destination location: Texas

Shipping condition on arrival: Box intact, no NPIP papers, one egg cracked, each egg individually wrapped in bubble wrap pointy end down in carton, no markings on box indicating fragile or hatching eggs

Amount ordered: 12

Received: 12

Amount of eggs set: 11

Time allowed for these eggs to rest: 13 hours

Time and date set: 12:00am March 20, 2021

Hatch result: 4/10 hatched

Incubator used: Harris Farms Nurture Right 360

Temperature: 99.5-100.0

Humidity: 55% before lockdown 75% during lockdown

Fertility rate: 81.81%

Other notes: Incubator malfunction days 1-10. Inaccurate humidity reading. The incubator was reading 15% higher than actual humidity. Day 16 power failure for about 1 hour.


*I have another batch in right now... i’ll add more stats once those hatch in the next few days*

 

[Crazy Duck Lover]

Stats: Hatch 2 (Hatched 4/22)
Egg source: eBay Seller “batstuffing”

Species and Breed: Duck, Mixed breeds

Origin location: New York

Destination location: Texas

Shipping condition on arrival: Box appeared undamaged, there were no markings on the box, each egg was individually wrapped scattered throughout the box, no in a carton, box was full of newspaper and shredded paper to pad the eggs

Amount ordered: 6

Received: 9

Amount of eggs set: 9

Time allowed for these eggs to rest: 24 hours

Time and date set: 2:00pm March 25, 2021

Hatch result: 5/9 hatched

Incubator used: Harris Farms Nurture Right 360

Temperature: 99.5-100.0

Humidity: 55% before lockdown 75% during lockdown

Fertility rate: 100%

Hatch Rate: 55.55%

Other notes: Air sacs were in great condition upon arrival. These eggs were sterilized with peroxide as an experiment. Day 11 power failure for about 1 hour.