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18 Common Problems With Hatching Eggs (And How To Fix Them)
18 Common Problems With Hatching Eggs (And How To Fix Them)
Knowing the cause of a chick abnormality can help you prevent it in your next hatch.
It’s good practice to break open unhatched eggs. It can often show you if the egg was fertile,
at what stage the embryo died, and possibly why. Infertile eggs will contain entirely yellow
contents, with no signs of an embryo or blood.Warning: Cracking open a dud egg can be
risky. It’s likely the contents will be rotten; worse are the eggs which explode when you touch
them, covering you in putrid ooze. Wear old clothing and perhaps cover the egg with a bag
or towel as you touch it to avoid splatter.
The following is mostly relevant to people hatching eggs in an incubator. A good mother hen
does most of the hard work for you.
Males sterile; poor hereditary hatching rate in flock; too many or too few males; males
fighting with each other; males too old; inadequate nutrition or insufficient water (or water too
cold) to breeding birds; seasonal decline in fertility of hens due to reducing day length;
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3. Rotten egg
Breeding flock out of condition; temperature too high or too low in incubator or hen left eggs
too long; lack of ventilation around incubator; improper turning of eggs.
Low average humidity in incubator; too low or too high humidity at around Day 18.
Low humidity
11. Large, soft-bodied, ‘mushy ’chicks, hatched but dead, bad odours
Low average temperature; poor ventilation; omphalitis (navel infection) from bacterial
contamination in the egg.
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Average temperature too low; eggs stored too long; poor storage of eggs before incubation.
15. Delayed hatch, eggs not starting to pip until after Day 21
17. Crippled chicks, eg cross beak, missing eye, wry neck, crooked toes, splay legs
Poor or incorrect parental nutrition; excessive number of malpositions among dead chicks in
shells (eg chicks upside down); improper turning or setting of eggs in incubator; inadequate
ventilation; abnormally high or abnormally low incubator temperature; insufficient moisture;
hereditary issues; shell faults due to natural, heredity, or nutritional issues; damage or
vibrations to eggs in transit
(eg, if posted to you).
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