Embryos seem to have stopped growing

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svickery

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This is my first attempt at hatching eggs. I borrowed a self turning incubator from a friend. He has previously achieved 50-80% hatch rates with it, depending how much effort he put into maintaining the humidity.
I tested it with 2 thermometers and it ran at just a tad under 100 degrees F. I managed to achieve 50-55% humidity but only by putting a couple of syringes of water on the floor of it (when it is supposed to do that with just the small box full of water)
I used 6 bought eggs (Silkie Bantams), and 12 of my own (Hybrid x Cream Legbar). After a week it looked like 25% were infertile but the rest had a small embryo. I think I have since lost another 50% - they just seemed to stop growing and remain, at 2 weeks, about the size of a kidney bean. The remaining 25% have chicks inside that are taking up half the space inside the egg (about 3 times the size of the kidney beans).
I check them three times a day and the temperature has remained spot on. The humidity has mostly been 50-55% but a couple of times the floor has dried up and it has dropped to 30% humidity (but not for very long as I check them often). Could this fluctuation cause 10 eggs to die ?
Is it possible that they have just grown at very different speeds ? I didn't think so ?
The only other factor I can think of is that the weather was VERY cold the week I decided to collect my eggs. I checked for them every few hours but still some came in very cold indeed. I wonder if that damaged them - but if so how come they started to develop at all ? Certainly the ones I bought were very cold when they arrived through the post.
I want to know if I have done something wrong before I have a 2nd attempt.
Have I handled them too much ? candled them at 3 days, 7 days, and then every 2 days this week
I always wash my hands beforehand and thoroughly disinfected the incubator before use.

Also I have been offered a computerised incubator that maintains its own humidity, temp, and turning, to the exact requirements of the species - £200 2nd hand - worth it or not ?

Many thanks for your advice

Suzie
 
Hi Suzie - You have tried hard with your chicks haven't you!

Chicks do die for no apparent reason - could be too much handling, wrong humidity, not strong enough germs - anything really.

The usual thing is to candle at 10 days and then again at 18 days - the amount of candling and handling that you have done, might have been a little too much! :) You don't say what make of incubator you borrowed, nor have you given any indication of what the one is that you are thinking of buying might be. Your humidity was not too bad early on, though again depending on the incubator as to what it should sit at.

The eggs were obviously fertile so it could be down to the cold weather, that damaged them slightly before they went into the incubator - they then died later on because of this. There are so many possible when it comes to hatching eggs! :)

I'm sure that some of the others will be along with more advice.
 
What sort of incubator have you been offered, Suzie, and how many eggs will it hold, in relation to how many hatches/chicks you want to go for? Is it still on the market new, in which case you could read reviews and see how much the new price is. Probably someone on here has got one if it's a standard make, and could tell you more about how it performs. ,
 
Hi Suzie, bit of bad luck. Incubator sounds expensive for second hand unless it is something very special. Problem with hand turning eggs is risk of bacterial infection, not just from your hands but in the air. If the eggs are not developing they need to come out as when dead they will decompose and potentially poison the remainder. Think too much candling as well. We do 6 days, 10 days and 16 days. Low humidity isn't that much of an issue, it won't kill the embryos that readily, if at all. Real problem is raising it at 3 days before hatch to soften the shell and membrane so they can break out.
 
Thanks for this - the incubator I am using at the moment is the Novital Girauova 20
Don't know much about the new flash one but will investigate.

Also wanted to add - the 5 succesful looking eggs were all from 5 different hens.

Thanks for advice re candling - I'd been told you could do it daily and it wouldn't hurt - so will keep my hands off them now

I do need to have a final check on the 'dead' ones to be sure they are, before chucking them out - shall I leave that to day 18, or if they are that small now are they definietly dead ? ie kidney bean size at day 14. Would hate them to explode and ruin the good ones.

Many thanks
Suzie
 
If you check them twice 3 days apart and no growth they are dead. When they start to weep handle them very very carefully as they are about to explode!
 
I have checked the ones that stopped growing against the chart I made at the start - I tried not to clean the eggs before incubating, but some were a bit messy and had to be spot cleaned with a warm damp bit of kitchen towel - but every one I cleaned (however small a bit was cleaned) has died c 7 days. So it seems possible that the combination of me candling them too much from 7 days (introducing germs) + the fact I had disturbed their protective bloom, could be the reason. 2 of the survivors were very cold when they were collected - and one of those travelled in the post - so that isn't consistent, but the cleaning seems to be a linking factor.
Do you put dirty eggs in the incubator, or only select the clean ones in the first place ? I do clean out the nest boxes every morning, but sometimes not early enough.
 
Personally I do not put dirty eggs in to the incubator I do wash them under the tap with warm water and let them dry naturally on the rack.I'm to had simular expirience with dirty eggs which died early or in the first week of life after hatch(bacterial contamination propobly) Having said this I had recently seen sombody incubating dirty eggs in incubator with fantastic succes rate (he had even power failure for full 1 day and tought that all hatch will die)and I had asked him about it and he never washes any of the eggs and last year hatches are all healthy(he had some dirty eggs last year too)
 
Hi Svickery. We washed our first hatch in warm water and a third died from baterial infection. We now always use special egg steriliser which you put into warm water to make a solution and soak the eggs for one minute. We don't put any dirty eggs in anyway now, regardless of the sterilisation proceedure. We keep the nest boxes very clean and remove eggs frequently.

Yes, it sounds as though cleaning your eggs has had the opposite effect. The embryo starts to form and is then killed by bacteria inside the egg.
 
Katie Thear's book Incubation; a Guide to Hatching and Rearing says 'If the eggs are dirty they can be brushed clean with a dry nailbrush or sandpaper. Particularly stubborn marks may need to be scraped off with a scalpel. This form of cleaning deals with visible contamination, but what about microscopic pathogens that can rapidly multiply and cause disease in the incubator? Eggs should eb washed in water to wjhich an egg sanitant has been added. there are several brands available and it is important to follow the instructions for a particular product as they can vary in strength. It is also vital to use warm water so that any bacteria on the gg are drawn away from the pores. If the water is colder than the egg, the effect can be to draw IN bacteria!''
 
That's the stuff Marigold, egg sanitiser. Ours is 'Chicktec Hatchery Sanitiser' mixed at 1:100 so 10mL for a litre of water. Obviously Katie Thear didn't do her research properly on that one -we found out after our first attempt at hatching, which was a disaster. Two infertile, two died at 5 days with bactreial infection, one hopelessly deformed because the parents were inbred and lacked vital vitamins, one a cross breed which was really nasty and turned cannibal at three weeks and was immediately despatched. The eggs were from a poultry equipment supplier who on the face of it appears perfectly reputable!
 
Sorry Katie. Misread your post Marigold. Of course I could have got off my backside and read it for myself!
 
It's best not to wet eggs at all prior to setting and any very dirty ones should be discarded. If too many dirty eggs are produced, look to your management.
There are lots of known reasons for dead in shell but it's often difficult to say which applies to your particular setting. In my experience, too high humidity in the early stages is by far the biggest killer.
 
Interesting you say that, Chuck, as there's been discussion on another forum about humidity control and lots of people get good hatches by adding no water at all until the final 2 days. This is particularly true for quail, but apparently many people do this for other poultry species as well. You have to take into account the natural humidity of the air which is being drawn through the incubator, which in this country is usually quite high.
So how do you avoid excess humidity in the early stages, Chuck?

I did wonder about this when I read Suzie's first post but as my practical experience of incubating only amounts to one hatch, I was waiting for someone with more understanding to raise the humidity issue!
 
I bought new incubators 4 years ago and naturally followed the instructions. Following some disappointing hatches, and learning from the experience of others, I took the plunge and ran them dry until day 18. The results were much better but I still got quite a lot of dead in shell in the last few days. So I decided not to up the humidity until the first eggs had chipped and get my best results using this method. Humidity when the eggs chip 50% in winter and 55 - 60% in summer.
My incubators are housed in what was my old dairy (goats) and is a small room (tack room) in a stable block which gets very cold and can get very hot in summer. Whatever the weather, the room has around 20% humidity, + or - a few degrees. I think it makes a lot of difference where your incubators are set up e.g. a room with central heating would probably need water added to the incubators but I haven't hatched indoors for years.
I hatched geese for a friend last year (March) using the same method and hatched 18 from 22 eggs, only increasing the humidity to 55% when the first eggs chipped.
Only after having a few unsuccessful hatches do people usually pluck up courage to run them dry. In the majority of cases it seems, results improve, usually dramatically.
 
I do think your humidity at 50-55% is rather excessive and would not be surprised at all if that was the problem.

I do find that what works for one person does not necessarily work for another even if using the same machine in the same circumstances, so a little bit of personal fine tuning is required.
As a guide I've just had my first hatch of the year, only twelve fertile eggs but 100% hatch rate, humidity was run at 35% for the first eighteen days raising to 45%, using an r-Com 20.
 
Just thought I'd update this : not a single egg hatched ! So the cold weather wasn't a factor, as the eggs that came in cold and the eggs that came in warm, all died. Similarly cleaning them with a damp cloth wasn't a factor as they all died - although the ones I spot cleaned died first. I am guessing that there was some infection in the incubator - I had cleaned it as thoroughly as I could, but it was very dirty when I borrowed it and I didn't clean the electrical elements in the top because I was worried about damaging them (+they are very hard to get at). The infection killed the ones whose natural bloom had been damaged by my spot cleaning first - but eventually killed all of them. Is that a reasonable guess ? Can't be genetic as the eggs were from different hens and cockerels.
So I have borrowed the very expensive incubator that any idiot can use ! RCom20 Pro. I have bought a specialist disinfectant and cleaned it to within an inch of its life (but you still can't get in to all the vents where the air ciruclates). I will wash my eggs in an egg sanitiser this time (warm water). My nest boxes will be immaculate (although they were last time too). I will collect my eggs every hour to avoid contamination. I will only candle them at days 7, 14 and 18. And I will hope for chicks by Easter. Anything other tips ?
Questions : there seems to be disagreement about the temperature you should store your eggs at, during the week you are collecting them before they go in the incubator. I had mine at 15 degrees C - too warm ? too cold ?
Still not toally sure about the washing bit as many people seem to think you shouldn't wash them ?
Many thanks
Suzie
 
We stored ours at 10 degrees in the cellar. Brought them up to room temperature for a day, before cleaning by soaking in aformentioned egg sanitiser. Breeding adults were in good health with plenty of fresh greens in feed. No dirty eggs but incubator sterilised as well best as possible. We hatched 7 batches of up to 12 one after the other. We only lost to infection in the last 2 batches (last batch half) because I think the infection had built up in the incubator, as we hadn't switched off and sterilised inbetween batches. Had a few unfertilised ones but had 46 hatch and 46 survived to 6 months.
 
Thanks Chris - I will do the same as you did - and store a bit cooler than last time.
 
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