Shipped Wyandotte Eggs Hatch Experience

[Jlreay]

Just wanted to share my recent experience hatching shipped Wyandotte eggs.

I ordered 12 eggs that were sent via Canada Post in bubble wrap. The sender sent 18, two broke during shipment. I let them sit for 24hours pointy end down to help with the air sacs. After 24hours several still have wiggly air sacs, but not fully detached. I put the remaining 16 eggs in cut down cartons in my incubator for 3 days, pointy end down, before moving to the automatic turner.

I had to use two incubators just because they’re both smaller so I couldn’t fit all the eggs in just one. I managed to keep my temp between 37.5C-38C, and humidity between 40-50%. I know the humidity seems high, but this seemed to be a natural range that the incubator would maintain longer. Anything below this range required frequent small top ups which just wasn’t easy to keep up on. I did use a little plastic cup to keep water in instead of directly into the incubator which helped slow evaporation. This took a lot of trial and error and worked well in both incubators. I used these tiny Govee monitors which was so helpful and they were all decently calibrated upon arrival Link - they are $30 off right now

Around day 8 or 9, I candled and removed 9 eggs due to either being unfertilized or scrambled during transport. So I was left with just 7 and move those all into one incubator.

Everything looked great, 2 had saddled air cells, on was quite bad (see pic).

For lock down I cut down egg cartons and left them pointy side down, and bumped humidity to around 75%. Again, 75% was where my incubator seemed to hold the best for consistency. On day 21 5/7 hatched within 3 hours. The time from pip to zip to hatch was at most an hour. The 6th egg hatched the next night around 1am. The seventh egg hadn’t made any progress so I candled. I didn’t see any movement, or hear anything. I water candled and still no movement, so I decided to make a hole and check for life. Unfortunately that chick had a sever cross beak and was missing an eye. It managed to pip internally, but wasn’t able to make an external pip. This was for the best given the circumstance. The saddled air sac egg hatched with no issues.

I have 6 healthy babies! They are either Partridge Wyandotte or BBS Partridge Wyandotte so we’ll see as they grow.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Very good breakdown. Congratulations on the hatch and good job on the monitoring and reporting out.
I absolutely love the Govee thermometer/hygrometer Bluetooth sensors. I use the H5074. Is that what you have?
It sounds like to me that the parents of those chicks received excellent nutrition. That contributes to chicks that break out quickly. And your temperature was spot on throughout (thank you Govee).

I have some input on the saddled and shipped eggs. While anecdotal, your success shows that less than ideal air cells can still incubate and grow just fine. I really believe that too much emphasis is placed on air cells at the beginning of incubation. While it is a good idea to let the eggs settle before setting and turning, 12 hours is probably sufficient and that could even be excessive.
The most critical time for turning is the first two weeks and is essential the first week. So by waiting 3 days before turning after onset of incubation, they missed out on nearly half of the turning needed the first week. The development of the "extra embrionic" membranes (chorionic, allantois and amnion) growing over the yolk only develop by turning. They contribute to allowing the embryo to extract nutrients from the yolk and albumen as well as oxygen.
The air cell only comes into play at pipping. A healthy embryo/unhatched chick, should still fair well enough without a good air cell.
IMHO, embryos in eggs from hens getting elevated levels of vitamins A, D, E, some minerals and essential amino acids for two weeks prior to hatching egg collection, turned frequently the first two weeks and held at the optimal temperature, have the best chance of producing chicks that hatch quickly.
If held vertically, small end down the last two days, the air cell should be good enough.
Shipping conditions that cause air cell problems result from a ruptured inner membrane. No amount of allowing the egg to rest will repair that membrane. So at this point, the blastoderm (future embryo) becomes the most important thing. That is nurtured by ideal temperature (37.5/99.5) and frequent early turning.
Again, IMHO, humidity doesn't necessarily have to be a specific number throughout. More important is that proper weight loss happens during incubation and higher humidity before pipping are all that really matter.
A mother hen usually has high hatch rates. She can't control ambient humidity. She could experience arid conditions or even a rainstorm. Ambient humidity can range from teens to nearly 100%. She can't lower humidity in a rainstorm. So, weight loss by pipping time is much more important than humidity at any one point. Weight loss in chicken eggs should be 11-13% during the first 18 days of incubation. If you can attain that, and raise it by day 19 or 20, that is all you need to do.
For years, I didn't even use a hygrometer. But weighed eggs before incubation and at least weekly the rest of the way. If I averaged .65% weight loss per day, I was good. If it was less than that, I let it dry out for a while. If it was more than that, I would keep humidity higher till the eggs lost less weight.

That is just my two cents worth, and some people will surely disagree on the air cell thing or something else in my writeup but that is based on science, not conjecture.

 

[Jlreay]

Very good breakdown. Congratulations on the hatch and good job on the monitoring.
I absolutely love the Govee thermometer/hygrometer Bluetooth sensors. I use the H5074. Is that what you have?
It sounds like to me that the parents of those chicks received excellent nutrition. That contributes to chicks that break out quickly. And your temperature was spot on throughout (thank you Govee).

I have some input on the saddled and shipped eggs. While anecdotal, your success shows that less than ideal air cells can still incubate and grow just fine. I really believe that too much emphasis is placed on air cells at the beginning of incubation. While it is a good idea to let the eggs settle before setting and turning, 12 hours is probably sufficient and that could even be excessive.
The most critical time for turning is the first two weeks and is essential the first week. So by waiting 3 days before turning after onset of incubation, they missed out on nearly half of the turning needed the first week. The development of the chorion and amnion membranes only develop by turning. They contribute to allowing the embryo to extract nutrients from the yolk and albumen.
The air cell only comes into play at pipping. A healthy embryo/unhatched chick, should still fair well enough without a good air cell.
IMHO, embryos in eggs from hens getting elevated levels of vitamins A, D, E, some minerals and essential amino acids for two weeks prior to hatching egg collection, turned frequently the first two weeks and held at the optimal temperature, have the best chance of producing chicks that hatch quickly.
If held vertically, small end down the last two days, the air cell should be good enough.
Shipping conditions that cause air cell problems result from a ruptured inner membrane. No amount of allowing the egg to rest will repair that membrane. So at this point, the blastoderm (future embryo) becomes the most important thing. That is nurtured by ideal temperature (37.5/99.5) and frequent early turning.
Again, IMHO, humidity doesn't necessarily have to be a specific number throughout. More important is that proper weight loss happens during incubation and higher humidity before pipping are all that really matter.
A mother hen usually has high hatch rates. She can't control ambient humidity. She could experience arid conditions or even a rainstorm. Ambient humidity can range from teens to nearly 100%. She can't lower humidity in a rainstorm. So, weight loss by pipping time is much more important than humidity at any one point. Weight loss in chicken eggs should be 11-13% during the first 18 days of incubation. If you can attain that, and raise it by day 19 or 20, that is all you need to do.
For years, I didn't even use a hygrometer. But weighed eggs before incubation and at least weekly the rest of the way. If I averaged .65% weight loss per day, I was good. If it was less than that, I let it dry out for a while. If it was more than that, I would keep humidity higher till the eggs lost less weight.

That is just my two cents worth, and some people will surely disagree on the air cell thing or something else in my writeup but that is based on science, not conjecture.

I did see a lot of recommendations for not turning for a full 7 days, but I just couldn’t do that especially seeing studies that prove turning eggs = more successful hatching. I noticed with my second batch (that are still incubating) I followed the same process as above and it does seem like their air cells have less movement now, then when they arrived. But it’s hard to tell for sure and is just based on my visual judgment. This second batch I put 14 in (also shipped) and on day 3 when I put the eggs into the turner I had 4 that looked either not fertilized or had a possible blood ring. Yesterday, day 7, I removed 5. Two were not fertilized or scrambled, 2 had blood rings, 1 looked like maybe it tried starting, but no veining or movement. So maybe 3 would have done better if they were turned right from the start, but maybe not. If I was going to hatch more I might try different methods, but these are the last I’ll do for this year.

With humidity I just followed recommended guidelines, visual checks of air cells and whatever I could maintain the most consistently since I work and couldn't be home to do frequent top ups. Again, if I was going to hatch more I might try other ways, and see what works best for me

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Well good for you.
Did my writeup make sense?
That is based on years of hatching and much research into all aspects of the science of incubation.
Don't you love Govee?
I had two other thermometers I used to recommend for years. One was the Brinsea Spot Check and the other was the Thermoworks RT301WA pocket digital.
Both very accurate and neither will break the bank but the Govee is my new go to.
I also love that you can monitor it on a smart phone and it constantly monitors both conditions.

I've been planning on writing an incubation book for some years and I think it is high time I get started.