What is the best way to hatch shipped eggs????

[CrzyChknLady81]

Hi it's Henry
Could anyone a jersey giant breeder be able to send me over hatching eggs
To the uk

I would post in the Jersey Giant breed forum/thread..a lot of us order our hatching eggs too and figure the odds of finding a breeder to export would be a lot higher there
Best of luck!

 

[AmandaVirginia]

August last year, I received my very first Mallard duck eggs from Metzer Farms. Out of 13 eggs, 12 eggs were fertile. Out of 12 eggs, 11 eggs hatched out.

I was a newbie then and completely unaware of the problems shipped eggs can potentially have with their air cells. I guess I just got lucky. I didn't put them in an egg carton at all. I have a styrofoam bator, I lay the eggs fat end up, and hand turn them three times a day.

All 11 Mallards were rehomed to a farm and I have 4 Call ducks! 3 outside, 1 inside! My 3 outside Calls (male Snowy, female Grey, and male Grey) are the parents to my house duck, a female White Call! I hatched her myself, she's 6 weeks old and she's a beauty

I've incubated and hatched my girl, Perdy's, first three clutches of babies! Then she built a BEAUTIFUL nest of nine eggs and hatched her fourth clutch! After two weeks, her little brood were rehomed all to the same loving family! I thought she was done for her first breeding season! Well, yesterday I found 3 more eggs! Looks like my girl wants to be a momma again! So, I would love to add a pair of Ancona Calls with my Calls outside! With that being said, I'm going to order 6 Ancona Call eggs and put them in my girl's growing nest outside to hatch as her own! Now I'm worried about their air cells though! Does anyone recommend anything for me? Thanks in advance for the responses

 

[CrzyChknLady81]

August last year, I received my very first Mallard duck eggs from Metzer Farms. Out of 13 eggs, 12 eggs were fertile. Out of 12 eggs, 11 eggs hatched out.

I was a newbie then and completely unaware of the problems shipped eggs can potentially have with their air cells. I guess I just got lucky. I didn't put them in an egg carton at all. I have a styrofoam bator, I lay the eggs fat end up, and hand turn them three times a day.

All 11 Mallards were rehomed to a farm and I have 4 Call ducks! 3 outside, 1 inside! My 3 outside Calls (male Snowy, female Grey, and male Grey) are the parents to my house duck, a female White Call! I hatched her myself, she's 6 weeks old and she's a beauty

I've incubated and hatched my girl, Perdy's, first three clutches of babies! Then she built a BEAUTIFUL nest of nine eggs and hatched her fourth clutch! After two weeks, her little brood were rehomed all to the same loving family! I thought she was done for her first breeding season! Well, yesterday I found 3 more eggs! Looks like my girl wants to be a momma again! So, I would love to add a pair of Ancona Calls with my Calls outside! With that being said, I'm going to order 6 Ancona Call eggs and put them in my girl's growing nest outside to hatch as her own! Now I'm worried about their air cells though! Does anyone recommend anything for me? Thanks in advance for the responses

Since you'll be using her, you won't have quite the control..but I would definitely let them rest a full 24 hours when they arrive, check all the air cells first, mark those with a detached or rolling air cell. Check them again after the 24 hours to see if any have reattached (for the record, no matter how long I've let mine sit, I've never had one reattach but have successful hatches despite it)..give those that are still not attached a lil mark so you know which are which and just keep a good eye on those throughout bc if there's going to be any that pose a risk of exploding, those will be the ones..
best of luck!! I tried Muscovy but none developed..trying peafowl in addition to my incu full of polish. I set the peas in a separate bator tho

 

[RubyNala97]

Since you'll be using her, you won't have quite the control..but I would definitely let them rest a full 24 hours when they arrive, check all the air cells first, mark those with a detached or rolling air cell. Check them again after the 24 hours to see if any have reattached (for the record, no matter how long I've let mine sit, I've never had one reattach but have successful hatches despite it)..give those that are still not attached a lil mark so you know which are which and just keep a good eye on those throughout bc if there's going to be any that pose a risk of exploding, those will be the ones..
best of luck!! I tried Muscovy but none developed..trying peafowl in addition to my incu full of polish. I set the peas in a separate bator tho

You're in good hands with this advice. I was going to respond similarly!

 

[RubyNala97]

I watched the video and immediately ran to Walmart for a dog crate and heating pad.  I have one Ameraucana chick that is doing fine in her "quonsit hut".  I added a feather duster since she is all alone (except for the dog and cat).  I heard about the "feather duster mommy" on the Oklahoma page.  She cosies up to it and spends most of her time in the feathers.  Great idea for lone chicks.

She hatched on day 19, but my other eggs are still sitting.  It's day 24. I'm trying to be a good girl and not open the incubator or touch the eggs.  I did a water candling and saw some movement the other day.

I somehow missed the post. Any action with the eggs? So you got 1 on day 19 and nothing by day 24 but they were still alive? Sorry if you've already said it in an earlier post but how many eggs did you set and what incubator are you using? We gotta figure out what went wrong with this hatch! Also, please put a mirror in with her. It's not good for chicks to be alone. Can you pick up another chick or 2 for her, locally?

 

[sugarstark]

I'm not far from Carmel! I hope you get a great hatch!!

Thanks you! I must have confused my set dates, everyone (18+) seem to be doing great and are about to pip internally so it's a matter of a few days at most. As I've said before they'll be $8 each (or a possible discount for more than 5) and we will have started them on an organic crumble and snuggled them to sleep I'll keep you posted

 

[CrzyChknLady81]

I watched the video and immediately ran to Walmart for a dog crate and heating pad.  I have one Ameraucana chick that is doing fine in her "quonsit hut".  I added a feather duster since she is all alone (except for the dog and cat).  I heard about the "feather duster mommy" on the Oklahoma page.  She cosies up to it and spends most of her time in the feathers.  Great idea for lone chicks.

She hatched on day 19, but my other eggs are still sitting.  It's day 24. I'm trying to be a good girl and not open the incubator or touch the eggs.  I did a water candling and saw some movement the other day.

Be careful with the duster..it's better to elevate it some so thst the chick can go under the feathers and not in them..their little legs, toes or feet can get stuck, their necks, wings, etc..
have you had any other hatch? I had a bunch of paint Silkies that started hatching early day 18..that was 4 days ago..all of the chicks were in the brooder by late day 19 except one that went in early D20..but there was one egg..I thought it was a quitter bc it hadn't drawn down, air cell hadn't shrunk at all..I went to do an eggtopsy and thank goodness I only opened the air cell..bc it was breathing, still hadn't absorbed the yolk. I figured it would die soon, just looked too far behind but I left it in the hatcher.. today is D22(almost 23) and it's drawn down now, yolk looks almost completely gone and it's moving like crazy now when I moisten the membrane. Can't wait to see if it 'internally' pips..
Don't give up on them if they've not hatched yet..I've had them go anywhere from.Day 18 to Day 25

 

[sugarstark]

Very encouraging. First external pip was 2days ago at 3 am, that one hatched 16 hours later and a sibling pipped and hatched this morning and another just now. 3 other eggs have now pipped from a different breed and the others are still viable but not yet internally pipped. These were shipped eggs and I can't dedude any other factor that would have caused such a staggered hatch. I'm not convinced they are of the best stock as the second one has a deformed left foot (which I cut some cereal box and bandaid to try and fix while he's still soft). I hope enough of these silver quilled old English game birds make it so we can add them to the existing cock we have and streingthen the obvious issues... The shells were not great either, some were extremely pourus. Lesson learned to not buy blind. I'm thinking parent pic, candled egg pic (for shell porosity) and feed description for the next go round. $70 was a little too much but they were so hard to find!

 

[CrzyChknLady81]

Very encouraging. First external pip was 2days ago at 3 am, that one hatched 16 hours later and a sibling pipped and hatched this morning and another just now. 3 other eggs have now pipped from a different breed and the others are still viable but not yet internally pipped. These were shipped eggs and I can't dedude any other factor that would have caused such a staggered hatch. I'm not convinced they are of the best stock as the second one has a deformed left foot (which I cut some cereal box and bandaid to try and fix while he's still soft). I hope enough of these silver quilled old English game birds make it so we can add them to the existing cock we have and streingthen the obvious issues... The shells were not great either, some were extremely pourus. Lesson learned to not buy blind. I'm thinking parent pic, candled egg pic (for shell porosity) and feed description for the next go round. $70 was a little too much but they were so hard to find!

Sounds like the eggs may have been old..late/delayed hatching is one of the first signs
I know where some Japanese game banty eggs are, but no OEG...I refused to even sit down and figure up what I've spent on eggs this year...I live in WV and I'll just say that I probably could have driven to CA, bought established breeder flocks of Tolbunt polish and paint Silkies and still had enough money left over to build a new coop..

 

[CrzyChknLady81]

Ask long time members about potential sellers you're looking at..especially those that are often on the threads of those breeds. .I've bought from 8+ different members on here this year and have only had 1 experience that wasn't great but it wasn't awful either