Same hatch: one breed hatched well, the other poorly

[Puck-Puck]

Hello all, hoping for your insight.

I've just hatched a bunch of chicks, and am puzzled by the result. I'd like to learn where things went wrong, and how to better handle things next time.

Using a Hovabator, which has given sterling service over the years, I set 23 Ameraucana eggs, and 11 Leghorn eggs. That is, eggs from white hybrid leghorns crossed to an Ameraucana roo. This is my first time hatching Leghorn eggs.

As usual, I removed the eggs from the rocker on Day 18, increased humidity, and locked down. As usual, the Ameraucana chicks started pipping and zipping on Day 20, and were pretty much all dry and fluffy and toddling around on Day 21. (Of 23 eggs, 21 were fertile; all 21 hatched, and 20 survived.)

The Leghorns, not so much. They started pipping on Day 21, and by the end of Day 22, there were four Leghorn cross chicks (three normal, but one with such a big abdomen that its feet couldn't reach the floor, and odd, small eyes), and no further activity in the incubator. One egg was partly zipped, then stopped. I gave the hatch one more night, then this morning, Day 23, I gave up and investigated.
Of the eggs, one was infertile... okay; one had died halfway along...it happens; and four were feathered and at the point of pipping, but did not, and died in the shell. As did the one that half zipped, then quit.

I'm wondering if the poor hatch with the Leghorn eggs was due in part to the difference in egg size, and that they therefore needed different management. "Chicken eggs need 21 days", they say. Ameraucanas have always had their main event on Day 20, so do Leghorns need more like 22 days? And following that thought, do they need that extra day in the rocker, rather than in lockdown? If redoing this mixed egg size hatch, should the Leghorn eggs go into the incubator rocker a day before the Ameraucana eggs, to synchronize lockdown? Or should I not do mixed egg size hatches? If I do a straight batch of Leghorn eggs, should I still give them an extra day in the rocker before lockdown?

I think I've done mixed egg size hatches before (been a few years), but never had this sort of failure rate, and not so tied to one breed.

Any insight or similar experiences?

Thank you for any help.

 

[Debbie292d]

If the eggs were all together, that means they were incubated at the right temp and humidity for both breeds as they are the same.

I would look at your breeding stock. The hen(s) maybe aren't getting as good of nutrition as your other ones due to bullies or some other reason? I'd start giving them vitamins and see if that doesn't help.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Where did you get the eggs? Were they yours or were they shipped or transported? Could the leghorn eggs have been shaken or subject to hot or cold conditions during shipment or transportation?

How were they stored before incubation began? Were they turned or subject to high or low temperatures or temperature swings during storage? How and how long were they stored before incubation began? If everything was the same for both groups of eggs before incubation began then of course none of this matters.

Heredity has a part to play in when they actually hatch. Due to genetics some tend to hatch a day or even two days early or late. Mine tend to hatch 2 days early, whether in an incubator or under a broody hen. I think that is due to genetics. I don't think this had much if anything to do with yours due to the bad hatch rate but I'll mention it.

I'm confused with what hybrid leghorns means anyway but I'll ask. Are the leghorns inbred? You can run into fertility/hatching issues if the hens are inbred for a few generations. Crossing them with your Ameraucana roo would solve that for the next generation but not this.

Debbie has a good point. Is there a nutritional difference in the parent flocks?

I've read that you can get a difference in hatch time due to a difference in egg size. Smaller eggs supposedly hatch earlier than larger eggs. I have not observed that however. Sometimes I hatch small pullet eggs with larger normal sized eggs. I paid attention to when they hatched a couple of hatches and did not see any difference due to egg size. Enough people believe that so there is probably something to it but not when I was observing.

I use a Hovabator 1588. Once I worked the kinks out of it I was very satisfied with it. If yours is a still air there might be a cool spot in it. I imagine you segregated the eggs. It sounds unlikely but do you think there could have been a cool spot with the leghorn cross eggs?

Did you remove the Ameraucana chicks before the leghorns hatched? Did you shrink wrap some of the leghorns doing that? If you had I'd expect you to have mentioned it.

A lot of this is grasping at straws, highly unlikely. My main thoughts are nutrition and health of the parent flock; possible differences in how the eggs were stored, shipped, and handled; and maybe genetics.

 

[Puck-Puck]

Where did you get the eggs? Were they yours or were they shipped or transported? Could the leghorn eggs have been shaken or subject to hot or cold conditions during shipment or transportation?

How were they stored before incubation began? Were they turned or subject to high or low temperatures or temperature swings during storage? How and how long were they stored before incubation began? If everything was the same for both groups of eggs before incubation began then of course none of this matters.

Heredity has a part to play in when they actually hatch. Due to genetics some tend to hatch a day or even two days early or late. Mine tend to hatch 2 days early, whether in an incubator or under a broody hen. I think that is due to genetics. I don't think this had much if anything to do with yours due to the bad hatch rate but I'll mention it.

I'm confused with what hybrid leghorns means anyway but I'll ask. Are the leghorns inbred? You can run into fertility/hatching issues if the hens are inbred for a few generations. Crossing them with your Ameraucana roo would solve that for the next generation but not this.

Debbie has a good point. Is there a nutritional difference in the parent flocks?

I've read that you can get a difference in hatch time due to a difference in egg size. Smaller eggs supposedly hatch earlier than larger eggs. I have not observed that however. Sometimes I hatch small pullet eggs with larger normal sized eggs. I paid attention to when they hatched a couple of hatches and did not see any difference due to egg size. Enough people believe that so there is probably something to it but not when I was observing.

I use a Hovabator 1588. Once I worked the kinks out of it I was very satisfied with it. If yours is a still air there might be a cool spot in it. I imagine you segregated the eggs. It sounds unlikely but do you think there could have been a cool spot with the leghorn cross eggs?

Did you remove the Ameraucana chicks before the leghorns hatched? Did you shrink wrap some of the leghorns doing that? If you had I'd expect you to have mentioned it.

A lot of this is grasping at straws, highly unlikely. My main thoughts are nutrition and health of the parent flock; possible differences in how the eggs were stored, shipped, and handled; and maybe genetics.

Hello Ridgerunner,

Thank you for all of these clarifying questions.

The eggs are all from my hens, who get fed the same layer ration, and none of the ladies seem to be bullied. If anything, they interact mostly with each other. (Birds of a feather do tend to flock together.) The Leghorns were purchased as chicks, two years ago, at the feed store. The Ameraucanas are home-hatched, outcrossed, possibly slightly mutt, but for all intents and appearances, Ameraucanas.

By "hybrid Leghorn", that is what the Miller Hatchery has them as, sold as a hybrid, productive egg layer of large white eggs. Light, flighty white hens with floppy combs and yellow legs.

For six days, I brought eggs in, chose the cleanest, using a damp cloth to wipe away any smudges, without (I hope) totally destroying the protective layer. I kept the eggs in an egg carton on the kitchen
counter, pointy end down, per usual. (I have found that seven day old eggs are not viable.) Then I put them, all at the same time, in the incubator--which I believe is a 1588. At any rate, it has a fan. I followed the procedure that has always given good results. The eggs were somewhat segregated, on opposite sides of the incubator, but sharing rocker trays equally.

Now, you ask whether I shrink-wrapped the unhatched Leghorn chicks. I don't know? Not sure what that is? It was getting crowded and rowdy in there, chicks lying over pip holes, I didn't want them smothering pipping chicks and getting extraneous poop and goop everywhere to breed more bacteria in the warm and humid environment, so I removed the dry chicks to the brooder, so they could run riot, there. But I topped up the water to make up for lost moisture. And the two day old chicks would need actual food and water, very soon. If I didn't take them out, they would be without food.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Shrink wrap is when the membrane around the chick dries out and shrinks around the chick so tightly that it cannot move to hatch. That membrane turns white and is dry. Opening the incubator after the eggs have external pipped can cause some to shrink wrap but it is pretty rare even then. If I have a reason I open the incubator and take my chances with shrink wrap. I did shrink wrap one once but was able to help it out and it did fine.

 

[Puck-Puck]

Shrink wrap is when the membrane around the chick dries out and shrinks around the chick so tightly that it cannot move to hatch. That membrane turns white and is dry. Opening the incubator after the eggs have external pipped can cause some to shrink wrap but it is pretty rare even then. If I have a reason I open the incubator and take my chances with shrink wrap. I did shrink wrap one once but was able to help it out and it did fine.

Ah. No, because most of those dead in the shell had not yet pipped.
Perhaps I'll try again next year, with eggs from this year's crossbreeds, as well as their parents, and see if I can deduce whether it's more to do with genetics, or egg size, or something else.
Footnote, the last Leghorn to survive hatching, which had a distended abdomen, looked normal by morning, and could walk. The eyes still look weird, but not as weird as before. It's as if it needed still more time to develop, but grew out of its shell, and had to finish outside the shell. Another reason I removed the last of the normal chicks, as this one was very vulnerable.