Shrink wraped

[DylansMom]

Well I did the float test on an egg that is a week past due they floated all the same, took them out to crack them open one was bad second had a full live chick in it gasping for air. I could just cry. I just sat out there in tears. Why did it float if it was good? I am never doing the float test again. Ugh I am so mad at myself. That baby was a week late, I know my temp is dead on I have three different temp humidity gauges. I just don't understand what went wrong. Although the electric did go out two different times for three hours, but I wouldn't think that would put them that far behind. Any ideas?

Are you certain it was a week late? I've never heard of one being that late and still being alive. So sorry you went thru that.

I've never tried a float test myself, a good powerful led flashlight and I can generally tell if there is any life in them. I cannot imagine those short power outages could have done that.

 

[mandyok]

I know but I wrote the date on the egg so one week late. I did put them in the day they were laid, so I just knew I had good eggs. That is why I kept giving them extra time. I could see that one of them had grown so I just kept giving it time. Kicking myself now. I should have went with my gut and given it until Tuesday. That was going to be my absolute last day.

 

[casportpony]

Sorry for your loss... Had it absorbed it's yolk yet?

-Kathy

 

[mandyok]

Yes almost all, had just a little bit left I tried putting it back in the bator but when I went to check it had died. Ok I have another that I put in the the 18th. So I am going to give this one at least 10 extra days. I have learned my lesson. I am just sorry it cost me a baby to learn it. Oh and I am no good at candling either, so I will just have to go with the extra time and leave the other methods alone.

 

[casportpony]

I found this:
Source: http://beautyofbirds.com/incubationprocedures.html


I did it with live duck eggs at it worked for them. However, I did not leave them in long enough to see if the would bobble.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

And this is for geese:
Source: http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/3002.htm


-Kathy

 

[birdeo]

Quote: I lost two this way... They make their initial pip, start to zip just fine, but mine continued turning and not breaking the shell and suffocated. when I went to assist their beaks were about 1/2" from their last pip though the shell. Make sense?

-Kathy

ok, well I thought zipped meant that it has externally pipped ( through ) the shell ...hence the zipper look to the shell as the chick is working it's way out . In that case once the chick has made this external pip then it has air and it would not suffocate. Photo below of what I thought was meant by zipped.
http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/P2180001-11.jpg

 

[birdeo]

Quote:
It basically has everything to do with the weight loss of the eggs, if anyone bothers to weigh them that is.
If they are not losing enough weight then you dry up your incubator parameters, if they are losing too much weight then you raise the humidity.
I just have gathered my humidity info. from several reliable sources on hatching peafowl eggs and don't bother to weigh them.
The 60% RH the entire time bumped up to the 65-70% in the last couple of days RH works very well for our peafowl eggs.
I think at 47% you would have excessive weight loss and the shrink wrap issues unless you have some very thick shelled non porous eggs .

 

[BYC-user-174785]

Quote:
The br (bronze) egg was one of the smaller eggs. A chick that hatched earlier must have been from a much larger shell. That shell somehow covered the bronze egg so that it couldn't breath. It was pretty hard to get that shell off the bronze egg. Also, it might help to know that these eggs were under a broody, and unfortunately they do not have humidity control.

The charcoal egg was helped on day 28. The person I got the eggs from lost a lot of peachicks with large air sacs, and the charcoal had a large air sac. He is the largest peafowl breeder in NY so I think he knows what he is talking about. I thought that charcoal had died but before I was going to throw it out I saw its eyelid moving. I got it to a point where it only had to push the shell off, which it did. But unfortunately that must have been too much for the weak chick since I found it dead. And the humidity was high in the incubator due to it having duck eggs.

 

[casportpony]

Quote:
It basically has everything to do with the weight loss of the eggs, if anyone bothers to weigh them that is.
If they are not losing enough weight then you dry up your incubator parameters, if they are losing too much weight then you raise the humidity.
I just have gathered my humidity info. from several reliable sources on hatching peafowl eggs and don't bother to weigh them.
The 60% RH the entire time bumped up to the 65-70% in the last couple of days RH works very well for our peafowl eggs.
I think at 47% you would have excessive weight loss and the shrink wrap issues unless you have some very thick shelled non porous eggs .

Just to be clear, that was 47% until day 24 or 25, then the humidity was raised to 65-70% for the last two days. Four piped, zipped and hatched just fine at 47%/65-70%, but when the other four were eggtopsied, there were fully formed, ready to hatch chicks in fluid. To me that means humidity was too high, right?

-Kathy

Edited to add: This year I'm weighing my eggs and the ones that seem to hatch best have lost 15-18% since the date they were laid.