Slightly dirty egg - incubation

[newchickychick]

You don't need to be in such a hurry that you drop one or make some kind of mistake. Take enough time to do it safely. Instantaneous humidity isn't an issue. What matters is the average humidity over the full incubation. That is what controls the total moisture that evaporates through the porous shell.

Thank you! It’s really nice to know it’s an average! I can be so much more laid back. The govee says it is indeed the displayed temp and humidity in both too.

I plan to just wait to set them Monday when the others are here since they’re officially at our close post office. I’ll be very careful with them! But keep everything simple and go with the flow.

 

[Esc_Quaily]

That’s really clever! I can definitely add a bit of water before we open it if that ends up the case. We will just do our best. Thanks for the advice! I definitely will. We will see 1/19 hatching as a complete victory for our first hatch. I suppose that’s the great thing about just starting - 0 expectations so we can only be pleasantly surprised.

Hello newchickychick, . I just wanted to wish you good luck and let you know we are also on our first hatch with delayed sets of eggs. We're on day 18 and have 6/13 hatched and dried adorable chicks in the DL brooder . I hope your eggs arrive on Monday. Good luck with your first hatch.

 

[newchickychick]

Hello newchickychick, . I just wanted to wish you good luck and let you know we are also on our first hatch with delayed sets of eggs. We're on day 18 and have 6/13 hatched and dried adorable chicks in the DL brooder . I hope your eggs arrive on Monday. Good luck with your first hatch.

Thank you so much! They’re in the incubator already! Today was officially the full day 2. Tomorrow I’m going to be putting them in the turners. So nervous and excited! I’m hoping we can candle them the day after or day after that and hopefully start to see some viability for peace of mind.

 

[newchickychick]

Have I lost my last marble? Is this the bottom of the barrel? I’m trying to figure out a decent way to separate these so they’re not in danger of toppling when I need to remove for candling.
I’m going to try to cut out little circles from an egg carton too and reinforce with rubber bands but I am hoping to find a way without the bands. I feel like that’s not great under heat. (I have seen someone use the straw method but…) We’ll see.

 

[newchickychick]

Candled as I went to put them in the turners. Maybe I shouldn't have.

It's day 3 and only one egg is showing veins. One has a single small vein. Others seem to have small dark shadows? Maybe? But definitely only the one with spidery, obvious veins. Is that just one showing signs before the others? They're MOSTLY Polish eggs, so I could see pretty clearly. Quite a few seem porous... I'd daresay most of the eggs do. The one with the veining is, of course, a bit oddly shaped (very very pointy/elongated end) and seems to have gotten scratched up by a hen potentially. It didn't break the shell at all but when candling I can see lines in scratch-like shapes towards the bottom. So if one is developing obviously while none others have any veins that I personally could see, and it's only day 3, is there still a chance others are still well on their way to developing? Or if one is clearly showing it, and the others aren't, are they quite unlikely to develop? I'm worried if I take them out daily to candle that I'll hurt their development, so I'm trying to wait as patiently as possible for Monday. But knowing this one way or another would at least put my mind better at ease.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Be patient, give it time. The worst thing you can do is get impatient and do something drastic.

It is your first time incubating. I understand you want every egg to hatch and you are terrified you will do something wrong. I doubt it does any good to tell you to relax a little, a lot of us have gone through this and the world did not end. Use this as a learning experience so your later hatches can maybe be better and hopefully less stressful. As long as you don't have an egg smelling like a rotten egg nothing is going to go wrong because you are patient and wait a while. If they stink, carefully sniff each egg and get rid of the ones that stink. (A hint, they hardly ever stink. Worrying about it will not help and is usually not worthwhile)

 

[newchickychick]

Be patient, give it time. The worst thing you can do is get impatient and do something drastic.

It is your first time incubating. I understand you want every egg to hatch and you are terrified you will do something wrong. I doubt it does any good to tell you to relax a little, a lot of us have gone through this and the world did not end. Use this as a learning experience so your later hatches can maybe be better and hopefully less stressful. As long as you don't have an egg smelling like a rotten egg nothing is going to go wrong because you are patient and wait a while. If they stink, carefully sniff each egg and get rid of the ones that stink. (A hint, they hardly ever stink. Worrying about it will not help and is usually not worthwhile)

Sounds like a plan! My concern was “should development be linear among eggs set in on the same day” but after posting this… I instead put on a good show and am leaving it be until day 7. I realized A: it’s not as hens could have been on the eggs before others. And B: I’m not going to change the outcome by fretting! I’m going to reward myself if I can stay relatively hands off and stop sweatin’ the details. It’s a learning curve in my life to not be trying so hard to prevent any and all mishaps. One day I’ll get there. Or at least close.

No, the reminder genuinely helped! I have many years to drive my hubby crazy with getting more hatching eggs ahead. So I’ll take it one hatch at a time and use each one as a learning experience of what went wrong and how to deal better. No way to truly do that until I’ve been there. In the meantime I can hang out with our many wonderful chickens and look forward to the satisfaction of hatching our own, whether it’s this month, next year, etc. I genuinely appreciate your ration and reason!