Yippee! aka why to have patience with scrambled air cells --

[amazondoc]

Three weeks ago, a nice lady sent me 4 bantam araucana eggs. Yes, I've already got bantam araucanas, but I want to increase my genetic diversity so I was happy to get them.

When the eggs arrived, they ALL had badly scrambled air cells. Tiny little bubbles of air floating loose inside the shells.

I let them rest for 24 hours, set them in the bator, and crossed my fingers.

On Friday, I candled them. 1 had no development (it also appears to have a tiny pinhole in the shell). 3 had something nice and dark filling the shells. The air cells still looked odd -- one looked like it had TWO air cells -- but somebody was in there.

I set them in the hatcher.

Today I have two hatched chicks so far. Still waiting on the third to get busy.

So if you receive eggs with scrambled air cells, don't give up hope!

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Totally agree!! I had shipped eggs the 1st of Jan. , 5 had terrible wacky air cells, but development was great in the egg. All hatched without problems!!

Never say Never!!!

 

[amazondoc]

I saw a post by one person on a chicken list who said that she had received a shipment of eggs with scrambled cells -- so she threw them all out! I felt terrible about all that waste. You never know what you're gonna get, until the end of that 3 weeks!

 

[Jenski]

Thanks for posting this, doc! I was wondering about a couple of mine as well, but most of the ones I had with funky air cells seem to be developing just fine.

. . . so how many chickens do you have now?

 

[amazondoc]

A girl never admits her age, nor the number of chickens she's keeping.

 

[Tuffoldhen]

Quote:

 

[amazondoc]

btw, Jenski -- Did I tell ya that, amongst other things, I've got some self-blue d'Uccles on order??

And as for your response --

 

[EweSheep]

I've tried incubating my Spitz hatching eggs that was shipped to me and figured, heck, gotta try it and see how it goes. About half of the doz were bubbled and popped them in the bator.

At one week and half, I candled them, all but two out of the doz were developing. At day 21, I got five chicks that hatched out of those bubbled eggs. One was a dud and didnt developed. Mind you, one doz eggs and got five chicks, not bad!

From now on, I will give those bubbled eggs a chance to developed.

 

[skeeter9]

Good point! You just never know and it's always a good idea to give them a chance. Once I had a batch come that were not only scrambled but also extremely porous. I figured they were not viable, but I incubated them anyway and I got 4 gorgeous BBS Orps from 12 eggs. Not too bad for the condition the box and the eggs were in when they arrived!