Very small air cells on day 16 - Please help me save these babies.

[Math]

This is a very good thread. I have dark eggs on day 14 with small air sacs. I am dry hatching and I have placed a fan to blow across the top of the LG still air incubator. I added some dry rice to help remove moisture. This is my first hatch with my LG. Thank you and Arielle for sharing your experience. You have blessed many people.

 

[calichickies]

This is a very good thread. I have dark eggs on day 14 with small air sacs. I am dry hatching and I have placed a fan to blow across the top of the LG still air incubator. I added some dry rice to help remove moisture. This is my first hatch with my LG. Thank you and Arielle for sharing your experience. You have blessed many people.

Aww... Thank you so much for your very kind words. I'm thrilled to hear that this thread is still helping others.
I wish you much success with this present hatch, and all your future hatches as well...
Too much fun!!

 

[Dianne88]

Hi, I have a problem and I hope someone here can help? I have 16 eggs that go into lock down in the morning and 15 are shipped eggs and one is from a friends' hen. I've given 3 (shipped eggs) to my broody hen to hatch and haven't candled them in a few days but they were fine on day 15. The rest are in my bator and all the shipped eggs are doing well, some are dark and it's hard to see inside but the air cell is progressing well (almost 1/3 of the egg). The one I'm concerned about is the olive egger my friend gave me, I've kinda seen movement (dark shell) but the air cell is the size of a nickle??? The texture of the shell is different too and wonder if it's not as porous as the others? I've read that the dark brown ones have a hard time hatching because of their really hard shell?? Anyway I'm comparing my shipped eggs to my non shipped egg should the air cell shape be this big of a difference? The temps have been 99-102 and humidity has been 40-50%. For lock down I'm going to increase the humility to 60-70%. Thank you for any help!

 

[calichickies]

Hi, I have a problem and I hope someone here can help? I have 16 eggs that go into lock down in the morning and 15 are shipped eggs and one is from a friends' hen. I've given 3 (shipped eggs) to my broody hen to hatch and haven't candled them in a few days but they were fine on day 15. The rest are in my bator and all the shipped eggs are doing well, some are dark and it's hard to see inside but the air cell is progressing well (almost 1/3 of the egg). The one I'm concerned about is the olive egger my friend gave me, I've kinda seen movement (dark shell) but the air cell is the size of a nickle??? The texture of the shell is different too and wonder if it's not as porous as the others? I've read that the dark brown ones have a hard time hatching because of their really hard shell?? Anyway I'm comparing my shipped eggs to my non shipped egg should the air cell shape be this big of a difference? The temps have been 99-102 and humidity has been 40-50%. For lock down I'm going to increase the humility to 60-70%. Thank you for any help!

Well-- I'm no expert -- we all learn as we go, but I'd say everything sounds great. You'll want to have your hatching conditions just right for the majority of your eggs. What I'm saying is you don't want to alter the whole bator just because one egg is coming along slower than the rest. You can wait to raise the H until maybe the night of the 19th day or something later like that. I'm sure it's different in Florida-- but in California I do the dry incubation method and my H is around 20 during incubation. Then up to 80 for hatching. Works for me, but you are in a very different environment so your experience will be different from mine. That one egg may just be a slow cooker-- leave it in the bator longer. Some say darker thicker eggs take longer (more days) to hatch, so you may be fine. Shipped eggs are the expensive ones... do what's best for them. Good Luck to you!!

 

[Dianne88]

Thanks, I will leave it in there a few extra days. You're right about FL, humidity is going to be a little higher no matter what, just think about the eggs under my broody they are probably exposed to 100% humidity!

 

[BobbieJo81]

So glad that I found this thread!! I have 40 eggs in the incubator and this is my first attempt at hatching. Today is Day 15 and I candled and noticed that the air sacs are small. The humidity has been high here so despite not adding water, my humidity has been on the high side. I added a bit of cat litter (didnt have any rice) and am going to leave it in until I can get the air sacs a bit bigger..hopefully I can get it done by lock-down but I most certainly have hope after reading this thread!!! I felt like I was reading something I wrote..I have eggs from my hens, eggs from my neighbors, eggs from the neighbors ducks, and then eggs that a local breeder gave me out of his 'rare mixed' pen that I got a few days after the first eggs were set but I didnt wait to risk loosing the eggs waiting , so I just added them as I got them.. heres to hoping for a lil of your luck

 

[Dianne88]

Thanks, I will leave it in there a few extra days. You're right about FL, humidity is going to be a little higher no matter what, just think about the eggs under my broody they are probably exposed to 100% humidity!

We had a bad storm here in Pensacola last week on Day 20 and lost power for 16 hrs. I tried to put all 16 eggs under my broody and she did the best she could to keep them warm. After the power came back on I placed 13 back in the incubator but only got 7 out of the whole bunch to hatch

. The one with the small air cell didn't make it, it was turned the wrong way and looked as if it had died closer to day 18. I did the best I could but Mother Nature has it's on ideas!

 

[calichickies]

So glad that I found this thread!! I have 40 eggs in the incubator and this is my first attempt at hatching. Today is Day 15 and I candled and noticed that the air sacs are small. The humidity has been high here so despite not adding water, my humidity has been on the high side. I added a bit of cat litter (didnt have any rice) and am going to leave it in until I can get the air sacs a bit bigger..hopefully I can get it done by lock-down but I most certainly have hope after reading this thread!!! I felt like I was reading something I wrote..I have eggs from my hens, eggs from my neighbors, eggs from the neighbors ducks, and then eggs that a local breeder gave me out of his 'rare mixed' pen that I got a few days after the first eggs were set but I didnt wait to risk loosing the eggs waiting , so I just added them as I got them.. heres to hoping for a lil of your luck

Good Luck to you!!
I'm hoping for the best for you.

 

[calichickies]

We had a bad storm here in Pensacola last week on Day 20 and lost power for 16 hrs. I tried to put all 16 eggs under my broody and she did the best she could to keep them warm. After the power came back on I placed 13 back in the incubator but only got 7 out of the whole bunch to hatch

. The one with the small air cell didn't make it, it was turned the wrong way and looked as if it had died closer to day 18. I did the best I could but Mother Nature has it's on ideas!

Oh Gosh! A power outage on day 20... I'd probably just die. Acck! But quick thinking on using your broody-- what a sweet Mama.
I'm sorry they didn't all make it... but at least you have the 7.

Mother Nature -- she is all powerful isn't she!

 

[BobbieJo81]

Good Luck to you!!
I'm hoping for the best for you.

Thank you!! Tomorrow is lockdown(around 4pm)..candled today and I see movement in all but one and that one is sssoooo dark that I can barely make out the air cell...I thought that my air cells were on the small side, but after looking at some others eggs and comparing the Day 17 eggs with Day 3-4 eggs, I can actually compare how big they have gotten.. Next time I will draw the air cell line from Day 1..live and learn..the girl that I got the bator off of said that she had really bad hatches in it so I am still nervous about a successful hatch but so far so good..if I can make it through the next few days without stressing myself to death