Help with egg viability and when to toss

[Willey98]

Hatching my first batch of chicks in the incubator and need some help with egg viability.

My eggs are on like day 15 of incubation. And I have officially candled them all for the first time. (I candled some at 8 days, but didnt write it down and didnt do all of them because the shells are pretty hard to see fine details and blood vessels through - next time Ill try candling them all though). However I have some eggs that clearly look very developed and I can barely see through except the air cell (9 eggs). And then there are a lot that are totally clear. And 2 that look very suspiciously like they had been developing and then died.

1. For the ones that are clear looking, do you remove them all at this stage or would you give them a bit longer? I thought about replacing them with new eggs so that they could get started incubating to hatch in a couple weeks after the first batch?

2. For the high number of clear eggs, I suspect it may be an incubator error or prior storage error (I didnt write the dates when I was collecting them on these eggs like I did the ones under the broody hen so some are likely older than the others, but not more than 2-3 weeks tops... plan on doing better on that too). But there was also a couple temps swing early in the process and I think I fixed it, but they got up to 103.5 *F for an hour or two about that 8th day mark, so I worry if that killed some. I also am not a fan of this incubator.. but its free so.. well give it a few tries at least

3. Does anyone else monitor weights for determining proper humidity? I have been, and it seems to be going well although my humidity tends to stay in the 40-45% range most the time. (Im gonna have to figure out a better method for once lock down happens because I can't see to get it even past 50 with just the water trays.) Just wanted to see if this was a reliable method?

4. The two suspected dead ages, does that seem correct?

I do have a separate temp and hygrometer in the incubator because the incubators actual thermometer is clearly broke..(its very off ) Im using a vivosun probe.

First two pic: clear eggs. Other pictures are of the two suspected deads. The clear eggs have a shadow in them, but I think its a shadow from the yolk? Not entirely sure.

 

[newchickmomma3-2025]

I’m not a pro, but for 15 days I’d think all the bright ones are no good. Not sure on the half dark one.

 

[nuthatched]

No good, I'm sorry

 

[Susan Skylark]

Why would you leave an obviously infertile egg in the incubator? Sorry, but if it hasn’t started developing by then it never will, no fear in mistaking it for a developing egg, as your good eggs are all dark. The half full eggs are likely quitters and can go too, but open them up and take a look, they don’t stink and it will teach you a lot. Also non developing eggs are likely infertile, the incubator didn’t kill them, they likely aren’t capable of development. A 103 heat spike for an hour won’t immediately kill your embryos either but 105 for several hours would likely cause a spike in deformity or late embryonic death. A certain percentage of infertily, early and late embryonic death and failure to hatch, deformity and early brooder death happens during incubation, especially in shipped eggs but if it is under 10% in each category (hopefully less!) it is still probably normal and not an indication of hatching issues. Death is always part of life and often there’s not a lot we can do to fix it. But don’t forget to enjoy the ones that survive instead of mourning over the ones that don’t.

 

[Willey98]

I did toss all the clear ones. Its just so hard to see through some of them, I wasn't sure if the shadow caused by the yolk was something developing but way behind vs not. The one I took a picture of was one of the few easy ones to see through. But i cracked them all open and they were definitely just duds.

Now second question. Apparently every time I open this incubator (aka to candle all the eggs last night before I went to bed). It will temp spike after. Does anyone else have this problem?

Now I really think theres a good chance they could be done for, because it got up to 107.8 and overall was above 104 for probably 40-50 min. Any chance they make it? I think Im going to get me a new incubator, I can't have something that can't regulate its temperature every time you open it. And I don't like spending 3 weeks of time on eggs that don't hatch.

 

[thistlewick]

I would suck up the budget and get rid of that incubator

your stress level is worth more than some money that we can't take with us when we die

 

[Willey98]

Exactly! Ordered the new incubator yesterday already! Pretty excited to get a good one, I really hope these eggs arent screwed though. But nothing can be done about it now, until the new one comes.