Backyard Poultry Forum

I have a setting of eggs that were due to hatch out Monday but are showing no signs of it. There is no cheeping or anything. I candled them and about 3/4 seem to be fertile. I am using a hovabator still air manual turn incubator.

Did you candle them recently? What did you see? Any sign of life? Any movement? Are they full of something dark, or what? Late hatches can occur when the temperature is a bit low, although three days is starting to become a concern, especially if there's no pipping.

_________________

Backyard Poultry Forum

I candled them yesterday. There was no movement, they were full of something dark with just the circle of light at the end. I would've thought they would at least been cheeping or pipping by now. The eggs are minorca eggs. The incubator only seemed to drop temperature at night but wasn't a drastic drop.

What did it go down to? What was it normally at? When did you set the eggs?

_________________

Backyard Poultry Forum

One is pipping now! Perhaps my counting skills aren't the greatest...

What a relief.

_________________

Backyard Poultry Forum

That's great! Let us know how they are going.

Janie

Well I have a chick as of this morning. It seems happy and healthy. No sign of any others pipping though.

You may have a spread out hatch. Your one chick will be fine in there for 24 hours. They don't need to eat or drink in the first day as they've just absorbed the remainder of the yolk.

_________________

Backyard Poultry Forum

I still only have one chick. I broke one of the other eggs yesterday and the chick was fully formed, still a bit of yolk, it wasn't breathing or moving. Why would they not be hatching? I candled some eggs from another setting and only 1 of my 6 plymouth rock eggs had anything in it and and only 2 of the 8 brahma eggs had anything. Is this normal for a hovabator? Should I be looking for a better bator? I've seen all roosters working so no problems there and I seem to have followed other directions. I'm a bit puzzled

Hovobators are able to produce good hatches but it is a skill and you have to get used to your machine and it may take a few batches to get it going well. Is yours a still air, or a fan forced one?

There can be many factors that contribute to an unsuccessful hatch. The biggest one I've found is temperature, but there is also ventilation, humidity, turning, egg quality, hygeine, genetic factors and disease.

Are these your own eggs? Just because an egg is fertile doesn't mean that it's good enough to hatch.

If you have chicks that develop but never hatch, we call these DIS (dead in shell). If you get everything working properly, you can eliminate some causes and improve your results.

The causes for this can be:

1. Incubator temp too high or low
2. Insufficient ventilation
3. Eggs not turned properly
4. Breeding
5. Inadequate breeder diet
6. Disease

To have a look at a couple of troubleshooting guides go here:

http://www.incubatorsandmore.com.au/IM% ... rouble.htm

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/eggs/res24-00.html

_________________

Backyard Poultry Forum