Hatching shipped eggs, some with bad air cells.

[DemeterAD9]

Green isn't doing too well, I think it will pass over night.

I decided to chip away at the remaining eggs only to find 2 fully formed dead chicks and 1 mostly formed dead chick that hadn't absorbed the yolk sac. Plus the other 4 eggs were quitters about halfway through and has small chicks inside. Not terribly happy to see that none of the maran eggs hatched, 2 were the formed ones.

On the other hand the first 7 to hatch are doing perfectly fine! They quickly learned where the food and water is and they know the heat plate as "mom". The dark brown chick, green , is the only complainer who will do some loud peeps for no reason. I'm currently working on getting them all used to being handled by picking them up a couple times each day. Red is the most responsive one when I stick my hand into the food, it comes running out from under the plate and picks around near my fingers.

On a whim I decided to try sexing them based on wing feather length. I am aware it is not really accurate for some breeds but here are the results.

Possible females

1. Green , black and yellow ones with a half black beak
2. Green , dark brown, feathered feet
3. Green , mostly black with white chin (wing feathers are already visibly longer than the others)
4. Red , yellow and grey

Possible males

1. Red , light yellow/grey
2. Green, light brown aka red
3. Green , black with white eye ticks, feathered feet, white neck/chin

It will be interesting to see how accurate the wing feather sexing is for these guys.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Poor little green has passed.

I cleaned the brooder today and all the chicks are still doing well. They sure do drink more what than I thought they would. Before long I think I will tape two of the 2ftX2ft boxes together and adding some enrichment, like a clump of grassy dirt from the hard and some sticks for perching. They've been jumping around and on top of the brooder plate so I think it's about time.

Group pic while I was cleaning the brooder.

One chick is a loud mouth, not sure if it is bored or actually seeking some attention.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens. This is a great place to explore and hang out.
You get shipped eggs my only advice let them sit like 12 hours after picking them up.

 

[fuzzi]

Well I'm ~5-6 days away from welcoming new chicks to the world for the first time. I've always wanted to hatch eggs and finally after slowly getting the family warmed up to the idea of keeping chicken for two years it's happening! I think the main trigger was when some trashy person dumped a flock of 9 birds down our road in the parking area of state land. I wanted to keep those birds soooo bad but we did not have the facilities at the time. Animal control helped round them up and hopefully someone adopted the flock.

This will be a thread to help me keep track of what's going on, and perhaps help others who have saddled air cells in their eggs. I've no idea what will happen but pretty soon we'll all know. So here's the whole process.

I purchased some hatching eggs off ebay from two sellers. One was a barnyard assortment of 12+1, these eggs were marked with and X. The second batch was 12+4 Ameraucana/Easter egger and either black, gold, or blue marans, 4 eggs are marans (all marked with O). 29 total and the incubator is said to only hold 24 so I talked to a friend and luckily she has a broody hen. 5 eggs when to her (one O and 4X) then the rest were set on March 7. Some of the eggs were a bit bigger than I expected so 4 had to be stacked on top of the others, I wasn't going to make another trip to give them to the broody hen.

The X's arrived on a Wednesday (shipped Mon) and the O's on Thursday (shipped Sat). I know I am supposed to let them settle for 12-24hrs, and the X's did but I'm trying to time the hatching for my 2 days off so I only waited about 8hrs for the O's and set them all together that Thursday evening. I candled all the eggs to check for cracks and noticed a couple had completely free floating air bubbles, figured they were a lost cause but put them in anyways. All the X's seemed in great shape while the O's were the ones to have air cell issues.

This is the incubator I bought: https://www.ebay.com/itm/196192242403
Temp is ~100F, the incubator says 37.2C but my thermometers say otherwise. Humidity is set to about 55%

Candled on 3/13 and removed 4 O's, one of which had developed some but died (read line of death). Most others looked to be doing well, some I cannot see through. One of the O's that was developing has a free floating air cell, the bubble moves every which way as I turn the egg. I propped this one up in a dish with paper towel fat end up and I've been tilting it side to side several times a day. Out of the eggs under the broody hen, I am told at least one, maybe 2 are developing.

Candled all again 3/20 and took out another 4 O's and 1 X, two of the O's did have some development. This is when I noticed the saddled air cells in a handful, mostly the O's. In most the eggs I cannot see much other than the dark shadow of the chick and the growing air cell. The egg with the completely detached air cell is still going strong too.

There are 15 eggs left in the incubator, 8 X's and 7 O's (luckily 3 maran eggs look to be good). I've been checking the detached air cell egg daily and it's still going! The air cell may have reattached, it looks to be of a normal round shape but I'm keeping it fat end up. I plan to put all eggs with odd air cells fat end up in a cut down egg carton in an attempt to help them hatch better. Monday they go into lockdown, they should start hatching Friday March 29 give or take a day. I'm making a guess that 10 will hatch.

I enjoyed reading your thread. I am setting up for my first time hatching shipped eggs and first time using an incubator. I just had my second broody hatch, and she did a great job!