Anyone incubate an egg that you had very little hopes for after research but its thriving?

[gimmie birdies]

Sorry, I had a 3 egg yolker. One yolk was not fertile. One yolk quit on day ten as expected. The last one made it to day 17, which is amazing.

 

[Slothinc]

Update: Unfortunately didn't make it.

So sorry about your little one Hope the big egg is able to hatch!

 

[PhantomSlayer]

I candled the beast egg and sadly no movement and its day 35 i wanted to see a little beast. Continuing on through goose season.

 

[normbo]

I think my one incubator has a quirk, a filler tube in one corner, and a vent to the top, likely creates a trivial little airflow, that might leave an egg in one corner at a cool temp, then when I move the egg, it can start. While, chicks should hatch in 21 days, I've seen a few hatch after 30 days, but always just one, which I think is due to this design glitch in the incubator. it's weird to think about throwing an egg out, putting it off a few days, then having it hatch 10 days after their siblings. It also creates a problem, whereas, I need to keep the incubator going to put the undersized newborn back in so he can sleep every now and again, and babysit the chicks a bit more for 2 days or so.

 

[PhantomSlayer]

Our setup is the same as last year except I did add a few extra candlings in to keep track of quitters. Same temp/humidity as last year.

10 day Candle. 14 day Candle. 20 day Candle. 25 day Lockdown (Candle at lockdown)+10 days

At day 35 if they don't hatch I candle them thoroughly before throwing them out.

Last year 6 out of 25 eggs hatched. 1 needed intervention and died 24 hours after leaving only 5 remaining. Those were a Buff American/Toulouse mix. Both were less than 1 year old. The gander is a Toulouse.

The Embden we added this year is less than 1 year old.

These past two eggs were an Embden/Toulouse mix. The next two eggs are the Buff American/Toulouse mix.

If they don't have issues I'm going to assume theres something off with the Embden/Toulouse Pairing. Maybe its because shes still her first year laying maybe her eggs arent as big as they should be for the mix or her health before we brought her in.

If they have issues I'm going to have to asssume its either something with the weather or something with the incubators that didn't occur last year but I calibrated both the same as last year so I can't imagine something was missed.

I'm keeping track of details. After the geese I plan to hatch chicks from our flock this year. So I can have those hatch details as well.

I might try doing a dry incubation run if my incubator allows it. It has a humidity alarm so I don't know if it will allow it.

 

[Slothinc]

I would think something is going on with your incubator if only 6 out of 25 eggs hatched… unless they were shipped eggs that got really shaken up in shipping, that is a very low hatch rate. I would bet that your incubator is either running too high or too low for temp. Do you have an external thermometer inside to monitor the temp?

 

[PhantomSlayer]

I would think something is going on with your incubator if only 6 out of 25 eggs hatched… unless they were shipped eggs that got really shaken up in shipping, that is a very low hatch rate. I would bet that your incubator is either running too high or too low for temp. Do you have an external thermometer inside to monitor the temp?

Well last year it was the first breeding season. I didn't see a whole lot of breeding and I only remember 10 actually developing. 2 of the other 4 made it to lockdown. I didn't do as thorough tracking as I am this year tho.

Incubator (Altrapow 36 Egg incubator) was running 37.5C (Doesn't have F)- 70-76% Humidity

Hatcher (Ookobi 12 Egg incubator) 99.2-99.3F - 68%-74% Humidity.

This is what I did to keep track a bit last year. The batch hatched marked with Broody was hatched by a chicken fyi lol. Our geese were in the chicken pen last year and the female wasn't going broody but we had a chicken go broody for the first time and I figured why not toss two under her and see what happens. The goose tried to steal the goslings after they hatched. I would love for a chicken to go broody again. To many goose eggs in the nest and no broody goose.