Missed the Easter hatchalong, anyone else setting 4/10?

[AinaWGSD]

Well, I hope everyone else did well.....

Me, I am at

and

the last dominique egg hatched, the slow iffy one.... And it is missing one eye and has a very slightly (good chance of being perfect) navel.

After goggling the missing eye..... It came back with "high temps or improper handling of eggs ie. turning rotating" So, my fault, not the breeders.

I am not sure how that happened... I thought that the eggs were being turned well.... I dunno for sure though. There were a couple of times when I added new eggs (staggered hatch) that I turned off the auto-turner and gentle turned by hand only a few times that day.....

I wish one of the possible causes had been infection.... Since the Dominique eggs were the ones that had some crushed eggs, and so I had to very gently rinse off a few eggs, and .i know that is a giant no no. But, that was not on the list.

Anyway, so now I am super worried about all of the rest of the eggs.

About half of the leghorns have hatched... But there are several more pips ... And they were due just yesterday, so that aren't that kate yet.... Also, so far all of them have been healthy.

I dunno... Just very sad, and VERY disappointed with myself.

Don't beat yourself up, you do the best you can with what you've got! And I wouldn't rule out rough handling from the post office as the "improper handling of eggs" cause for the missing eye. With multiple crushed eggs in that shipment I'm a little surprised you got any to hatch at all!

 

[Alaskan]

Thanks for the hugs. I really needed them.

 

[1muttsfan]

Don't be discouraged. Hatching in an incubator is not the same as brooding under a hen, and we do the best we can with an unnatural system. I hand-turn in one of my incubators, 3 times daily, and have just as good hatches as in the one with the autoturner - and I quite enjoy it.

One still pipped, but should have final hatch results by the end of the day. I got a Premier brooder plate and the chicks just love it, they peep only occasionally and come running out to eat and drink.

 

[Alaskan]

I have a dozen leghorn eggs that still haven't hatched. Odd.... One I actually opened the egg a bit, and it is actually still alive and not pipped and not ready to pip. Just odd. I put it back in the incubator, and last I looked it still was alive and still just not quite ready (too many blood vessels in the membrane). It isn't shrink wrapped or stuck or anything. I actually opened it since I thought that the air cell was SO big that there was no way it could be alive......but it was, and is.

I have never incubated shipped eggs before..... Maybe that is the entire problem? I decided since the egg that I thought was dead wasn't, I should leave all the rest to just sit there for a few more days.

But, it is very puzzling! So, at a guess, I think I got a 1/3 hatch from the shipped leghorns.

I am just very confused!

 

[AinaWGSD]

And our final chick count is....20. We had one more hatch yesterday morning (with assistance). Last night we checked the remaining eggs (I think there were 8) and all of those chicks were dead. From the looks of it, about half of them had intestines on the outside of the body wall, so they wouldn't have made it even if they had hatched.

Oh, and we have a broody hen now! So I've ordered some cuckoo marans eggs to toss under her. Now it's my turn to sweat it out with shipped eggs. At least I know that the hen will be more reliable than the incubator! So it's mostly a question of how rough the post office will be with them.

 

[Alaskan]

And our final chick count is....20.  We had one more hatch yesterday morning (with assistance).  Last night we checked the remaining eggs (I think there were 8) and all of those chicks were dead.  From the looks of it, about half of them had intestines on the outside of the body wall, so they wouldn't have made it even if they had hatched.

Oh, and we have a broody hen now!  So I've ordered some cuckoo marans eggs to toss under her.  Now it's my turn to sweat it out with shipped eggs.  At least I know that the hen will be more reliable than the incubator!  So it's mostly a question of how rough the post office will be with them.

Do you have any idea why so many had their intestines outside their body wall? And you aren't just talking about the yolk, right?

That is totally weird!

Yep, I had put a few under the broody too, she didn't do any better than my incubator.