Thank you all for your kind words really. It means a lot knowing that you all understand. This is only my second hatch that was a bust and my first was a very poorly packaged set(well two sets) of shipped eggs that the seller ignored my requests for being packed a certain way.
These eggs were our own and although we're having a few fertility problems currently due to our girls molting and not submitting to the roo I am sorely disappointed to have lost over 96 eggs. Really the number is probably closer to 120 after the eggs I added from the fridge, but many of those were old and not one did anything. I did my grieving for the losses and right now I feel well drained for one. The whole weekend was ups and downs while waiting for the eggs we thought were dead and had opened air cells to absorb their yolks and blood. It seemed like every time they got close to being ready they died. The chicks were beautiful and though a few were small and a couple had seemingly small legs proportionally they were all fully formed and most were very active in their eggs.
I'm not a fool I know there will almost always be losses. I understand and have come to terms with that. I don't like it but I know there isn't always anything I can do. I just feel like I could have done more. The whole hatch was buried in a mass grave today, something I hope we don't have to do again. After the eggtopsies I couldn't bring myself to throw out or compost the chicks, imagining the horror I would feel if we spread compost on the garden and found a chick skeleton. That's the part of hatching I think we all hate most probably is looking in those eggs we've been waiting on and finding out our waiting has been in vain and they have died.
I'm grateful to know people who understand the feelings when the hatch goes horribly wrong but I wish none of us had to.
along with world peace.
Sorry for the rant. Just needed to vent. I would ever so much rather have those chicks running around the brooder(in the side room) I know we all would.
I spoke to several of the people from the WI thread and discovered that most of them incubate at 40-45% humidity. They're more North of me but how is it that I can run my humidity at 26%-30% and have big sticky wet gooey chicks?
After cleaning the bottom of the bator with alcohol and wash/rinsing well and drying it, I placed the turner and all the staggered eggs back inside, including the huge egg on the side.
This afternoon another egg in the turner was pushed into the large egg and basically shattered one side of it. I pulled it out and opened it... Ugh. I'm sure eggs get more rotten but it was on its way. The insides were so far gone nothing was discernable except icky gross slightly off yolk colored goo that had started to smell. Thankfully I can see no grossness in the bator but it smells badly. Should I be worried about the smell? Again the egg didn't leak or ooze and it did not explode. Do I need to re-clean the bator?
I have been doing a smell check when we turned it BC it was hard to candle. I haven't smelled anything off until now. I'm so glad that I was able get it out before it got to the point of exploding, but it was too far gone to tell if it was even a double yolk. I did see a couple somethings that looked like possible embryos but if so they were quite early. No evidence of veining was discernable. It was a mess a smelly smelly mess. Lol
Good luck to us all on our next hatches, may the make up for as bad as these were.
