Out of two dozen Silkie eggs, I currently have only 4 hatched out and in the brooder.
The shipped eggs were placed in the bator and after the first week I had removed half of them right away after candling them. Two were questionable and went back into the bator. Another week later and the two questionable ones were tossed as well. 10 eggs went into lockdown. Another one was tossed last night because it died due to pipping at the wrong end. 5 Silkie eggs left and so far...nothing. One of them is a partridge and I so wanted one of those.
I'm not new to hatching and from my previous experience, the eggs that do not at least pip within the 24 hour period that the other eggs have hatched are no longer viable.
The ONLY thing I did differently this go round is that I had replaced the white not slip padding the eggs sit on with a black one (the white one I used last year was nasty from hatching and was thrown away). I found the black one, cut it down to size, then placed into my hatcher. When some of the eggs started to hatch, I noticed some weird waffle pattern on the eggs from the pad. At that point I realized that I did not wash the pad before placing it into the hatcher!
So now I'm wondering if I had doomed my eggs by placing them on this pad that might have had some oil or other chemical on it.
The padding is out now. There are 6 BLRW sitting on the bare hardware cloth I used for the floor of my hatcher. One BLRW hatched out this morning at 4am. I heard another egg peeping at that time. My temps and humidity are perfect. Here's hoping that the rest of the BLRW hatch today since it is their birthday.
The shipped eggs were placed in the bator and after the first week I had removed half of them right away after candling them. Two were questionable and went back into the bator. Another week later and the two questionable ones were tossed as well. 10 eggs went into lockdown. Another one was tossed last night because it died due to pipping at the wrong end. 5 Silkie eggs left and so far...nothing. One of them is a partridge and I so wanted one of those.
I'm not new to hatching and from my previous experience, the eggs that do not at least pip within the 24 hour period that the other eggs have hatched are no longer viable.
The ONLY thing I did differently this go round is that I had replaced the white not slip padding the eggs sit on with a black one (the white one I used last year was nasty from hatching and was thrown away). I found the black one, cut it down to size, then placed into my hatcher. When some of the eggs started to hatch, I noticed some weird waffle pattern on the eggs from the pad. At that point I realized that I did not wash the pad before placing it into the hatcher!
The padding is out now. There are 6 BLRW sitting on the bare hardware cloth I used for the floor of my hatcher. One BLRW hatched out this morning at 4am. I heard another egg peeping at that time. My temps and humidity are perfect. Here's hoping that the rest of the BLRW hatch today since it is their birthday.
