Hatching eggs take 2

How I spent my 2-day vacation – chicken adventure continues...

It’s been a tiring but very rewarding couple of days.  I’m off from my day job and all the chicks had hatched.  This is the second batch of incubated eggs.  Well, the hatch rate is still as pathetic as my first batch.  I’m now starting to think my cheap incubator’s temperature reading isn’t accurate.  And there’s no way I can control the humidity.  I can only add more water to increase the humidity.  But there’s nothing I can do to decrease it except opening the lid which makes the temperature go down.  The hatching was a bit delayed like last time.  This time I have 3 duck eggs which I have to leave for another 6 days.  The incubation period for duck eggs is 28 days whereas for chickens it’s only 21 days.

The hatch rate this time is 48.5% among the fertile eggs.  Not much of a difference from last time’s 47.5%.  There is only one infertile egg this time.  Here’s a summary of what happened this time.

Line		Chicken
A	Eggs set	34
B	Not fertile	1
C	Dead at first candling	4
D	Dead at second candling	1
E	Full-term, failed to pip	10
F	Pipped, failed to hatch	2
G	Total lost = B+C+D+E+F	18
H	Total hatched = A-G	16
I	Percent hatched = H x 100/A	47%
J	Percent of fertiles hatched = H x 100 / (A-B)	48.5%

Here are some of the day old chicks…There are 9 white/brown chicks and 7 blackish chicks.  Total of 16.

I had to very quickly satinize the incubator because there are still 3 duck eggs in there.  I temporarily put them outside on the porch in the sun and covered with cloth since it was warm today (28 C).  
 

Below’s the picture of the eggs that did not pip.  As soon as I was done putting back the duck eggs and the turning tray in the incubator, I was ready to discard these eggs.  Unfortunately, I heard a random chirp or two in one of these eggs.  I could not identify which one though and it’s already too late to put it back in the incubator.  So I discarded all eggs that did not pip after 36 hours of expected hatching.  I learned from last time that eggs that are very late in hatching end up dying within 24 hours of hatching anyway.  Egg 902 I already suspected during 2^nd candling that it may have a blood ring.

And on top of that, I brought the 4-week old chicks outside for the first time.  But I brought them back inside the house late afternoon as it still gets cold at night.  I wasn’t sure it would work but it turned out the chicks enjoyed scratching the ground for the first time.  Stay tuned for another blog.