Your experience with Maran eggs

[kvmommy]

So I'm curious, I know a lot of people mention having difficulties hatching maran eggs. Well I just got some gorgeous maran eggs from the generous sponsors of the worst hatch rate for the Mahonri Easter hatch. Yeah...I had 0%. So not only am I working at getting a good hatch rate in general, I want to ensure these marans hatch! What is some advice you give? I've heard of sanding the eggs. How does that work? Humidity? Any special maran singing songs??? Anything is appreciated.

 

[mrsfarmchick1]

I had a pretty successful hatch with Marans...but the breeder I got them from suggested 70% humidity in lockdown so I that's what I did and all of the fertile eggs hatched.

 

[debilorrah]

It is not the difficulty in HATCHING them as much as it is the difficulty in CANDLING them to see if they are progressing. The ones I have hatched its just a crap shoot because I can't see inside. So far so good, but you just never know.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

This is true. I have a good egg candler but it wasn't built with Maran eggs in mind so at best I can see an air cell. I need to come up with a stronger light for those.

 

[Katy]

I incubate my Marans eggs alongside all my other breeds in the incubator. I don't treat them any differently and have good hatch rates. They are almost always the last to hatch tho.

ETA: As far as candling them, over the years it's gotten easier for me to tell something when I candle. I just use a small LED flashlight from TSC.

 

[kvmommy]

Well I keep hearing about sanding the eggs. I only got a few marans in the bunch, so I won't risk it...but I can't help but feel very curious about this method. I read someplace the Maran club of France recommends it. I was gonna try a dry hatch, but for the sake of the marans, I'll keep it around 30%. Soooo nervous about this hatch...my last one was 0%.

 

[Glenmar]

I just had 13 out if 14 hatch. The only one that did not was a pourous egg. I heard that one cheeping. Maybe I sould have helped it.

 

[kvmommy]

Quote:
What did you do? How was your humidity?

 

[Glenmar]

I have a Brinsea ECO 20. My humidity ran between 40-50 with an average of 44. At 17 days, I was worried that the air cells were a little small, so I let the humidity drop during the last 4 hours before lockdown to 30%. I am not sure if this would have made a difference. During lockdown I was at 65%.

This was my first time, so I do not have any prior experience to share.

 

[Bravo]

I've noticed they are a little more difficult to hatch in that I find they are less resilient to incubation mishaps (e.g. power outages, temp spikes/drops) than other breeds are. In my own experience, I've found that the dry incubation method works best with them, 35% thru day 18 and then 55-60% at lockdown. I also incubate them along with my other breeds and it works out well.

If you purchased shipped eggs this is another added strain on them. It's hard to make a hatch rate comparison with shipped eggs to non-shipped eggs as the non-shipped eggs will almost always fare out better.

Don't give up! You will be successful!