First time hatching from my own flock

DemeterAD9 · Friday at 9:17 PM

Day 9

The long dark brahma egg, almost looks to have a blood ring when viewed from the pointy end but nope, just veins and baby is dancing around in there still.

I’ve noticed in the bigger eggs like the large fowl, grey OE and dark brahma the embryo seems smaller than in the more medium sized eggs. Probably just due to the relative size of the individual egg. Also, not sure if the embryo placement is supposed to be always at the air cell end but I imagine it is, most the embryos sit slightly off center of the air cell, typically in the opposite direction the incubator is tilted. I guess they always float towards the top of the egg, whichever way it is laying? I noticed this when candling early on that the embryo will float to the top as I turn the egg. But they never seem to end up at the pointy end if I hold them upside down. Now I’m curious to see what happens if they are incubated pointy end up, but I’m not curious enough to try it and risk killing one!

MountainWoman73 · Saturday at 7:59 AM

DemeterAD9 said:
Day 9
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The long dark brahma egg, almost looks to have a blood ring when viewed from the pointy end but nope, just veins and baby is dancing around in there still.
View attachment 4072881 View attachment 4072882

I’ve noticed in the bigger eggs like the large fowl, grey OE and dark brahma the embryo seems smaller than in the more medium sized eggs. Probably just due to the relative size of the individual egg. Also, not sure if the embryo placement is supposed to be always at the air cell end but I imagine it is, most the embryos sit slightly off center of the air cell, typically in the opposite direction the incubator is tilted. I guess they always float towards the top of the egg, whichever way it is laying? I noticed this when candling early on that the embryo will float to the top as I turn the egg. But they never seem to end up at the pointy end if I hold them upside down. Now I’m curious to see what happens if they are incubated pointy end up, but I’m not curious enough to try it and risk killing one!

Your pictures are helping me!

. We're going out of town for 3 days and letting my partner incubator-sit. I candled this morning and put a question mark on some that didn't look as full, but it might be what you said about relative egg size. I haven't tossed any out yet.

Cheekychook12 · Sunday at 2:15 AM

I’m hatching from my flock for the first time too, this was kind of a tester hatch to see if the eggs were fertile, my hen went broody so I thought I’d take the chance
Only set three eggs, one wasn’t fertile but the other two are doing very well, it’s day 5
These are the parents

DemeterAD9 · Sunday at 5:47 PM

Day 11, I think another of the dark brahma eggs is going bad. The veins aren’t looking great and it looks like a blood ring is forming. Oddly I think the embryo is still wiggling around in there so it will stay until I’m sure. Second and third pic show what I mean about the baby possibly still kicking in there.

Veins are spreading into the rest of the egg now.

DemeterAD9 · 2025-03-18T20:02:11-0500

Day 13, big thick veins and a lot of movement inside now. The odd dark brahma egg is still looking bad but there’s still movement near the air cell and if you look close you can see a few small veins. In the first three photos you can sorta see how the shadow on the left is in a different position aka embryonic movement. I do not expect this egg to go much longer but it will be interesting to see what’s inside.