Suggestions for Management of Damaged and Mal-positioned Egg Air Cells

[Annaleechickade]

For the sake of future readers I will tell my aircell/shipped eggs woes before update.

I received 4 utility toulouse eggs in the mail, box looked great, eggs looked great. I weighed and marked them, but forgot to candle for loose aircells. SO put them in the bator for 24 with no turning. After 24 began to rock them, then after another 24 hours remembered I had not candled them. This revealed the loose air cells. I followed advice of those on these threads and put them in bator upright with no turning. Original advice was until day 5-6. Yesterday evening was day 6, so I candled again and aircells seemed much more stable, still a little "wiggly" but not "floppy" or "sloppy". I was also able to see veining in the second egg. SO now 2 with for sure development, Other two I still cant see veining, but eggs are darker and in all appearances look the same as the other two, ie the shadow of the yolk, etc. They were just a bit dirty so not as translucent as the other 2.

Hi this is my first time ever doing eggs. All 8 of my eggs came looking good. No cracks and air sack is pretty much on top like you was saying they should be, but there is 2 eggs I can't see the air sack at all. I really tried to see it, but can't find it. I did put them 2 up on end with blunt end up. I have the other eggs just resting. In about 2 more hours I'm going to put them all in my bator like you said and do what you said to be best way to do them. Thank you i love reading your stuff it very helpful and comforting to me. I think this is going to be something i really like doing.

 

[Makin Groceries]

Pete, I'm sure everyone here has already said it but you're AWESOME and amazing!

I wish you could put all your knowledge on a chip and I could just upload it into my head.

I never thought about how all this works and like most everyone on the planet took for granted the miracle of the egg, how it's laid and how it gets here and turns into a little chick/gosling/peep/etc. Having never even thought I'd own an incubator, I've now got 3 remaining leftovers in there praying something happens.

The aircell is so important and your information makes all the things we see through candling (which is the easy part) make sense and know what we're looking at. Have you though of putting all your photos/documentation/knowledge into a book? "The Amazing Egg".

I read your profile and just noticed you already had! LOL.

I vote yes on the stickey for Pete's info.

 

[Farmlymatters]

Hi all,

I'm in a situation where somehow the air cell snuck to the wrong end of my turkey egg and I missed it. We're only 4 days from hatch and, even though I tried the 45° angle trick for a few days, it hasn't budged. Too much development.

Can you do anything to encourage the poult to pip at that end, even though it's incorrect, and then intervene in the hatch if/when necessary? Other ideas?

these are my first turkeys and a present from my partner. Development looks great so hoping I can save the backwards ones somehow

 

[Aoife123]

Hey I'm incubating some swedish flower hen eggs that I had shipped from the UK to me in Ireland. This is my first time incubating so it's a bit of a steep learning curve to say the least.

1. The incubator that I'm using is a a cheap one that I got from a friend. Took a long time to try figure out how to use as its not user friendly at all. Had a lot of trouble trying to keep a consultant temperature and the best I can do with it is to try keep it between 37.5c and 38c. It had however dipped to 37.1 on occasion and reached highs of 38.1.
Knowing that I was going to use something that could be somewhat unreliable I purchased a Govee thermometer so that I could keep track of the temperature and humidity.

2. As I'm in Ireland we have a very humid climate, dry hatching is very common here or so I read my incubator is reading about 29% humidity with no extra water.

3. I had no idea that shipped eggs could be so hard to hatch. Well I knew that the hatch rate was low but I knew nothing about the techniques used to hatch shopped eggs nor was I anyway aware of detached aircells. Ignorance really is bliss .

4. When I got the eggs delivered I candled for crack and all eggs were intact. I then left them to sit pointy side down for 24 hours as I was instructed by the seller.

5. This is where I began to do some reading and started to find out more about detached aircells. I began by leaving the eggs in the incubator and not turning and planned to do this for about 5 days. Upon further reading I decided to start turning after 2 days. I read a lit more and came across stuff about the air cell and after 6 days I candled to see if there was any development but also to see the air cells.

6. I discovered my aircells are all over the place. They don't move all around the egg buy when compared with one of my own hens eggs the air cells are very wobbly.

7. On day 7 I moved the eggs into egg cartons pointy side down and had planned on hand turning the eggs. Now upon further reading I read that you can tilt your incubator by putting a book or something underneath on side.

7. On day 7 I can only see vaining in two of 8 eggs. I was hoping for more development early on as I also read that a lot of the deaths occur later in the incubation.


The seller of the eggs had just recently incubated his own eggs and he had 100% hatch. I believe that he has had great success so I'm wondering where I went wrong to have such low development in the early days.

Also I want to give the two chicks the best chance of hatching. Is there anything else I should be doing ?

I had originally planned on just sticking the eggs in the incubator to see what happens. But now that I know so much more it's impossible not to try and help the chicks hatch if it can be done.

Any further help is greatly appreciated