Help - My eggs are hatching and the chicks are rolling the other eggs

[mark1guy]

So far of my 24 eggs, 8 have hatched and are drying off in teh incubator. At present the chicks are causing the remaining eggs to role around in the incubator. Are there any concerns to the remaining eggs. I'm anticipating some of the other eggs to hatch as the remaining eggs are larger birds (RIR eggs) versus Bantams that have hatched.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Jeff

 

[mdolley]

I'm new at this, just had our first hatch
The same thing happened to us

I set up the brooder and removed the oldest chicks which helped
Good luck with the hatch!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Yes, they play soccer with the eggs that haven't hatched. Are all the eggs scheduled to hatch at the same time? (not a staggered hatch where you set eggs in the bator on different days)

If it gets too bad, you may have to make a quick grab for the chicks. Make sure your humidity is high if you do it though, because you risk shrink wrapping the other eggs. If it's not too bad, I'd leave them in there. They will help encourage the other chicks to hatch.

This time I hatched, I hatched in egg cartons. I found this to be a better way to keep the eggs from being kicked around and I had a great hatch from this method. Do a search on egg carton hatching. Some people love it and some don't.

 

[mark1guy]

Thanks everyone. Great information about the egg carton. It's the first I heard of it. I have a feeling it is going to take several days for the eggs to hatch as the guy locally I got them off of said the eggs were mostly RIR but could be some bantams in there. Also he started collected the eggs on a wednesday and called me friday night to get the 2 dozen eggs.

At present the eggs are hatching based on size, smallest to largest, with the largest having no signs of cracking yet. I was anticipating the hatch to start on Friday, yet is started last night 11:00 PM.

Pretty exciting I must admit.

Thanks for the help all and any additional information will be greatly recieved.

Cheers.

 

[glenolam]

We are in the end of our first batch this year and I started with 32 chicken eggs and 15 duck eggs in the incubator. The chicks started hatching early Tuesday am (4/6) and have pretty much stopped as of yesterday. There are still 12 chicken eggs left - we have so far gotten 18 chicks. I'm thinking that the remaining 12 are no good or didn't make it, which is pretty sad, but ours rolled all over the eggs when first hatched, too. 1 chick didn't make it past the pip, but had made a nice hole; not sure what happened there, but another egg was thrown out early because of a crack.

The ducklings should start hatching on Tuesday 4/13 - when the chicks started hatching I pretty much let them take care of the rolling for me! The only problem I now have is the mess the hatched chicks left behind. I have started turning the duck eggs again because no more chicks seem to be hatching, but I left the remaining chick eggs in there just in case they decided to wait 3 days after hatch date to come out...cross your fingers! I, too, wonder if the rolling by the hatched chicks is what is causing the remaining 12 eggs to not hatch...

I'm definitely going to try the egg carton hatching with another batch we have going in another incubator (should hatch on 4/27). That way the hatching chicks leave the other eggs alone and stop making so much of a mess!

 

[thespinningcottage]

In my last hatch I lost a fully developed chick because it had pipped and then got rolled over so the pip was down. It must have become confused, I didn't notice the pip, and so it couldn't figure out how to zip the egg. I had left fluffy chicks in for 2 days and they played soccer with that egg for 48 hours - never again.

 

[zazouse]

Congrads on the new hatchlings,

I just turn off the lights so the chicks can not see, then they settle down and go to sleep while the others hatch in peace.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
As long as the eggs were all set in the incubator at the same time, then they'll be at the same stage of development.