Never, I repeat NEVER assume anything when it comes to hatching chicks! I had dark brown eggs in my hatch (set the 9th at noon) and I decided I would Just go ahead and pip the rest of the egg, and if no movement go ahead and see what happened. Well the first eggs few eggs I pulled were in fact dead, 1 piped internally but died before it could pip externally, the others didn't absorb the yoke. Well the next egg I piped saw no movement and proceeded, only to find it was alive, but bled to death (please no lectures as my stomach instantly started hurting and still hurts bad enough knowing I killed the poor baby
), it's poor feet were crooked but that doesn't make me feel better knowing it died because I was stupid
. My 6th egg is alive, had pipped internally but not externally, found the beak then wrapped the egg in a moist paper towel with just the beak out and left it alone. I didn't touch the green egg in there, I saw blood vessels in it yesterday when I candled it and don't need anymore heart break tonight.
My advice LEAVE the eggs alone until the 25th day!
And since the last 2 eggs are likely not to hatch today (I believe the cut off was today for hatched outs counting), if at all, my final hatched number is as follows:
SET: 6 duck eggs and 16 chicken eggs (all mutts)= 22 eggs total
2 clears pulled before lock down (1 duck and 1 chicken)
1 quitter (chicken egg, quit day 10-11)
The rest went into lock down (and all had chicks in them, just quit for various reasons)
HATCHED: 9 (3 ducks and 6 chicks).
I will post a picture of my babies tomorrow morning for proof, they are settled down under their ecoglow and I have a ton of homework to attend to...
