NO MORE WAITING!! THEY'RE HERE!!

[Knittycat]

My eggs came today! (only 3 days late *sigh* stupid USPS)
One was broken and stinky The goo got on a couple of other eggs, so I had to clean those ones. I haven't candled them yet (I had to come squee to my chicken friends first!) But I'll be doing that as soon as my legs and knees stop hurting. (I just got home from work)

 

[Impress]

Broken and stinky? That is suspicious. I would candle those eggs and make sure they don't have huge air cells, because if one busted and was stinky you may have been sent old eggs.

I had a woman trade me a rooster for two dozen assorted hatching eggs, and one broke in my hand when I was setting it in the turner. It was ROTTEN! So I checked all the air cells, and they were old old old! Huge air cells! She turned out to be a known flipper (someone who makes trades for animals just to turn around and try to get more out of them, buys cheap with pity stories then sells for as much as she can.) but boy was I mad about it. Big air cells are what you look for.

 

[Knittycat]

I just finished candling them. I was actually rather surprised at how good they looked considering the broken one. A few were a bit on the porous side, but nothing really bad. The air cells were great on all but one of them. The odd one out had a slightly larger air cell (about day seven incubation) but she told me that one or two of them would be reaching day seven since they'd been gathered when they arrived today, so no surprise there. They're actually in really great shape. No cracks, no detached air cells. The one that was broken I'm sure only got stinky *after* it broke. If it'd gotten here on Saturday like they were supposed to, I doubt it'd have started to smell. I was sure with one broken one, there'd be more issues like cracks and the like, but they're all good! The box was a bit roughed up, so I'm sure it happened because of douchebag postal employees. I know they're not all bad, but the ones that kick boxes marked fragile do exist, and they really piss me off.

 

[Impress]

Fingers crossed then! I am excited for you!

 

[Barn Mama]

keep us posted

 

[Knittycat]

OMG I had a dream where I went back and candled them again and the air cells were all huge and rolling! I'M SO GLAD I WOKE UP

 

[Barn Mama]

What day are you on?

 

[Knittycat]

Day 7 today. Candling day!! Out of my 14 shipped eggs, one might have a blood ring (not sure on that one, it's faint), one may be clear (still not sure on that one either, it's early yet), one that has a shell too thick to see much through, and one that's super porous so I can't tell much. The rest have at least faint veining, and several are very definetely developing. Saddle shaped air cells? Can you say yee haw? With the one that was broken, I'm not surprised though.
The six local eggs are all developing VERY nicely. Air cells are the perfect size, and I could even see embryos in a couple of them!!!
The temperature is holding very nicely at 100, except when I open the lid over and over to candle the eggs in groups of four! LOL! But the temp bounced right back up. Heat sinks FTW! The water wiggler is reading 99-99.5, so I'm very pleased.