Saturday, February 11, 2017

Failed Hatch

On Thurdsay, the 9th, the chick were due to hatch.  The day came and went . . . and nothing happened.  I thought perhaps I had miscounted, they hatch at the END of the 21st day . . .so I waited.  Friday came and went.  Nothing.  I put my head to the incubator and listened for peeps or any noise and was greeted with silence.

So today, Saturday I took the eggs out of the incubator.  I cracked open a few shells to see what had happened.  There were partially formed chicks in 10 of the eggs.  Rats!

I am struggling to figure out what went wrong.  I think . . . the temperature of the incubator was too high.  I'm going to see if I can-recalibrate it and start again.

I had everything ready too; box, warming lamp (with spare bulb), chick feeder, waterer and a 25 kilo bag of chick crumb.

I'll see if I can reset the temperature and start again.

3 comments:

joared said...

Oh, so sorry to hear your eggs didn't hatch -- would be most disappointing. Maybe a couple Mother hens would be better to sit on them.

Peggy said...

I have used broody hens in the past with great success, but I don't have access to any. I have four hybrid layers who will never be broody. There are restrictions on the movement of domestic poultry in the UK just at the moment. Which means that I can't buy a broody hen. This is why I am using an incubator.

Shammickite said...

Sorry to hear the news about the chicks, I was so looking forward to seeing photos of fluffy babies!