svfarm
Chirping
- May 10, 2015
- 140
- 17
- 76
I am hatching chicken eggs for the first time. I did a lot of research throughout the process so that i would be prepared. The eggs are from mixed breed hens and rooster. the hens are mostly bantam and ameracauna so the eggs are a light greenish blue. For five days I had collected the eggs from my two hens that were laying. I kept them in a room at the proper temperature and humidity. I marked the eggs so I would know who needed to be turned. Also I numbered the eggs as I collected them. I kept a journal throughout incubation of the temp, humidity, candling observations, and any other general observations. Nine out of the ten eggs made it to hatching. One quit a little before half way. On day 18, I candled each egg as I removed it from the ice cube tray I was using to keep the eggs in and I set them on a paper towel in the incubator. When I did this I noticed that a few of the nine eggs were ready to hatch. The air cells were extended down on these and the chicks had absorbed most or all of the yolk. Most of the other chicks looked as if they had a day or two. But two of them were worrying me. Their air cells were too small. These two were the first two eggs collected. After a day the one egg's air cell had spiked downward pretty quickly and hatched on day 22. With all of the first 9 chicks I could hear them chirping for a day before they hatched and I could see that they had internally pipped. Once these had externally pipped, they all hatched rather quickly. After the first chick, the rest hatched in twos (I noticed that they hatch quicker when they can hear their hatching buddy chirping). This last chick is on day 23. It has been chirping in the egg for two days now. After the last chick hatched, i decreased the humidity hoping it would help to increased the size of the air cell. In the past day, the air cell has dipped down a bit but not much. When I candle the egg, I can see the chick moving around but I can't see it's beak in the air cell where all the others were. There is a spot at the dip in the air cell that looks like it was pushed down or something. Im not sure though. Also, it looks like this chick has a lot of yolk left to absorb. Most of the blood vessels have receded. It sort of looks like the chick may be too small. When I checked an hour ago, the chick was still chirping but not as frequently. I still could not see its beak where it was on the other chicks at hatching time. I decided to increase the humidity back close to where it should be for hatching. Does anyone have any info on what is going on with this chick or suggestions of what I can do?
