Ugh... pretty sure I’m only going to be 1 for 12 😭(pics)

[Stephanie8806]

Well, I think I somehow messed up my first ever incubation and I’m heartbroken. We’re set to start lockdown in about 36 hours, and of my 12 hatching eggs(4 OE, 4BCM, 4Amerucana), I can spy ONE SOLE EGG that doesn’t seem to have quit early to be fair, 2 of my BCM eggs are so darkly shelled that I can’t catch anything at all through them, even with the camera.

If I can only hatch one, don’t worry, I will immediately be buying some live chicks so the little baby won’t be alone. I was planning to supplement with a few anyways, but I was genuinely hoping I’d be able to hatch 4-6(seeing as it’s only my first time).

Here’s my photos... I didn’t take pictures of the two that were fully dark due to shell color. I don’t think I’m wrong, but let me know if you see any signs I’m missing that could indicate where/how I went wrong???

It looks as though two may have been infertile to begin with, and a third that has a blood ring, but seems to have quit on the first day or two. Besides those, the rest seem to have made it to the 9-11ish day mark. The one viable one looks to be on track, and the two not pictured are for sure a mystery because they’re too dark to see anything.

 

[CHlCKEN]

@MGG
I agree, a good many of them don’t look at all promising. I’m sorry,

 

[Kiki]

This does not look good.

My first question and the most important one when it comes to incubation is how many calibrated thermometers do you have in your incubator?

Temperature spikes and hot spots are deadly.

 

[Cerci]

Sometimes the problem is already IN the egg & not in the incubation process. If the fault already lies within the egg - not even the most bang on incubator will make a 'quitter' anything else but. So glad you got hatchlings though!!

 

[Kiki]

Ugh. Thanks for the confirmation. Do you think there’s hope for that last one? Should I remove the ones that are clearly no longer viable?

Absolutely, remove all those dead ones that you are 100% sure are no good.

 

[Stephanie8806]

Sorry to hear about your son. Mine broke his arm recently so I know how hellos that is as a parent to deal with.

I think on the upside, you've got 1 or 3 babies coming. Sometimes there is a genetic fault that causes early quitters. Don't beat yourself up. These things happen. Try again

Thank you so much! I’ve been so caught up in chick stuff that I haven’t replied anywhere lately And thank you for the condolences. My son has a doing so so so well now, but ohmigosh the mom guilt was/has been TERRIBLE. Thank goodness kids heal so fast!

So it turns out that we had three babies hatch!!!! One Olive egger(the viable one I shared), as well as the two that were too dark to see into(BCMs).

I am overjoyed, and they are all doing great! We bought 15 chicks from our local farm store, and these three added to that 1-2 days later. Two, the OE and the BCM hatched late on the evening of day 20, the other BCM hatched on the evening of day 22. I was able to take pictures and videos, I’ll see what I can upload tomorrow!

 

[Stephanie8806]

Okay, soooooo many pictures!!! But here’s what I was able to “Narrow it down to” some cute hatching pictures for sure! Such a magical experience! After seeing only one that I thought was truly viable, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to ever incubate again, but seeing the process was so cool, it made it all worth it!

 

[Mellowmalt]

Congrats, I completely agree that those eggs did not look 100% to start with.

If you look at picture 1, 2 and 4 I believe they all have speckles on the shell and if yu look at the air cell the air cell has become much larger in those eggs than the eggs without speckles.

This indicated the eggs were too porous to hatch well. Then your expereince and the timing of when they quit indicted the rest had a rough transport. Posting can dislodge the air cell which has been a death sentence for my eggs every time, I have heard people manage to save a broken air cell but I am not sure that is really possible.
Regardless, even if the air cell was not dislodged I've still received eggs that must have given the embrio a good knock on the head and this has usually shown around day 9 for me too.

So you got 3 in the end? That's not bad considering I think it was the infertiles and bad transport that caused the others not to make it

 

[Stephanie8806]

@MGG
I agree, a could many of them don’t look at all promising. I’m sorry,

Ugh. Thanks for the confirmation. Do you think there’s hope for that last one? Should I remove the ones that are clearly no longer viable?

 

[CHlCKEN]

Ugh. Thanks for the confirmation. Do you think there’s hope for that last one? Should I remove the ones that are clearly no longer viable?

I personally know very little about hatching and don’t want to tell you wrong. @Kiki may know what to say