Selfsufficientish.com

Hi,

If anybody (particularly Julie!) could help here, I would be really grateful - we have a bantam sitting on eggs (in a nesting box)- there were 12 in total. We have had one healthy chick, but two have died - the first had made a hole in the shell but then must have died before it had the energy to peck through the rest. The second one I helped out (not wanting the same thing to happen again) by teasing away most of the shell - it was breathing, and we left it in the nest. When we went back to check a couple of hours later, although the bantam was sitting on it, it was dead - we don't know why.

Am I missing something obvious here? I have done a bit of reading and thought it may be a humidity issue, but what to do about it? I do have a capillary mat, and wondered if dampening this and putting it underneath the nest may help? It is not particularly cold or hot where we are.

Would be really grateful if anyone could suggest anything else, before we loose any more. I didn't expect all 12 to hatch of course, but don't want to loose more than is necessary, poor little things.

Thanks in advance,

Bonnie

Hi,
how many of the eggs have started to hatch out in total?

Hi there,

Three so far.

Thanks

Bonnie

Right then, if it is not raining where you are (It has just started tipping it down here!!)
pop the damp (do not soak it!!) capilliary mat underneath the nesting material and resettle hen on top of the eggs
fingers crossed for the remaining hatch.
If it is raining where you are, then you must just sit back end let nature run it's course unless you have an egg incubator you could get up and stable in the next couple of hours?
did you candle the eggs to find out how many were fertile?

Hi,

Funny you should say that, it is raining heavily where we are now, and was all night - although they are in a covered henhouse (if that makes a difference). Fingers crossed then that the damp air does the trick!

We didn't candle them as we bought them online from a supplier, supposedly all ready to go. You may be able to tell that we are fairly novice at this whole thing but I feel happier leaving it up to mother nature and the broody bantam than hatching them in an incubator (we don't have one anyway).

Will keep fingers crossed and hope for the best. Don't mind if only a few hatch for economic reasons, just feel guilty if the ones that are trying to hatch don't make it.

Thanks for your advice,

Bonnie

No problem,
Unfortunately not all suppliers of eggs are honest, I had the same problem as you earlier this year, I had my eggs in a controlled environment in an incubator, I had 1 chick die before getting out of the egg, Originally I candled them and only half of the 6 eggs I set were fertile anyway.
Good Luck and you can only leave it in the hands of Mother Nature now.
Please let us know how many made it into this Cruel World.
Bye for now.
Julie

bonnie - you should't have to fiddle with humidity when using a broody hen.. obviously they should arrange it all themselves. So I'd nto think it was that - sometimes they do die in shell. its not nice but it happens.

if the rest dont come to anything - you might want to open them and see whats what.. it's not that gruesome. if they just look like eggs, then they were not fertile. if they have partly developed chicks then its likely the egg was damaged in transit.
i bought 6 eggs from a local place and only 1 out of them was fertile (wont be going back there again!)

Ahh, sorry Bonnie, I totally missed this yesterday!

Like the others have said, firstly, using a broody, you shouldn't have to be checking the humidity because the bird does all that for you.
At the rounded end of the egg, is the little air sac - it helps to think of a hard boiled egg & the gap at the large end... the dryer the conditions, the bigger the air sac is, but really, that's the technical bit & a bit of googling will bring up some sites that have really done their research into all of this!
Like Red said, sometimes this just happens - especially if the eggs have travelled - and even if they haven't!
I had 4 hatching eggs in the incubator that all pipped, broke the shells nearly all the way round, were cheeping loudly, an hour later they were all dead - still in the shell & nothing. Gone.
I 'helped' the last 2, & found that the innder membrane was very dry - that's when I bought my hygrometer & now I try to keep the humidity at 50% around hatch day. Some sites say it should be more, but so far, it works for us.

Sometimes it takes a looooong time for the chick to hatch, & in the first place, I used to whip them out of the incubator as quick as possible, but now I leave them there for the first 24 hours so that they are in a constant temperature that they are used to.
All of this should be controlled by the hen though - and if you had say 6 eggs through the post, or travelled, under a broody, then a hatch rate of 30% isn't actually bad for a 'learner'!
I candle all my eggs even though they are free ranging & serviced by the relevant rooster/drake, because sometimes even we can't guarantee that the boys have done their jobs properly - and yes, unfortunately, some egg sellers might be less than truthful - and they have the excuse of the postal service to fall back on.

Keep an eye on the rest of the eggs, but try as much as you can to let the hen get on with it - if you interfere too much, she may well decide to push the chicks out & leave you to deal with them, which is ok if you are there, but if you're not, then the chicks will get cold & that's that.

I know it's sad when you get to the end of the 3 weeks & disaster strikes, but really it's all a learning curve & you just have to chalk it up to experience.

Last year, I popped 12 postal eggs under our broody - some weren't fertilized, some grew but died after 2 weeks & then some pipped - none hatched. I swapped the eggs & put a dozen of ours under her & 10 were a success OK, it took a little longer, but she got her little flock in the end & I decided no more postal eggs.

Mind, you should have shouted me in the beginning - I could have sent you some duck eggs over - so far from ours I'm getting 100% candling & 80% hatch rate, whether under a muscovy, or in the incubator! I sent 8 to a friend in the uk, & she hatched 7!
And the chickens don't mind raising ducks - and they're cuter too!

Let us know how it's going today, huh??

Thank you for your lovely long post Julie, I feel much better now.

We did as suggested yesterday and just left her to it - were out all day from 8-8 and got back to find still just the one chick (which is getting big now!) and the remaining 9 eggs still haven't hatched.

Will give them another week (they arrived on 1st May) and then call it a day. I think you are right though, perhaps the postal egg thing is a bad idea. May have to call on you for those duck eggs!

Thanks again, will keep you posted,

Bonnie

postal eggs aren't always bad I got some from Castle farm poultry and he sends them special delivery, and they were all fine. i hatched 5/6.
but if you can get them locally - that has to be better