INCUBATED 12 GOT ONE

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Question

INCUBATED 12 GOT ONE: WE RECENTLY BOUGHT A INCUBATOR AND PUT IN 12 EGGS TO START.ON THE 22ND DAY ONE HATCHED AND THAT WAS IT.

HE OR SHE IS NOW 3 DAYS OLD AND NO OTHER CHICKS HAVE HATCHED.WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF THE OTHERS HATCHING AND WHAT SHOULD WE DO FOR THE SINGLE CHICK WE HAVE?

Answer
You can raise one chick by its self or you might want to buy a few chicks to raise with it. Being flock animals, they do better in groups.

Make sure your brooder temperatures are correct, starting at about 95 – 100 degrees F the first week, and decreasing the temperature 5 – 10 degrees per week as tolerated.

Chicks will complain and become weak if unable to warm their bodies to the right temperature. I find it’s best to go by the behavior of the chicks.

The chances of these other eggs hatching are slim. The other eggs may not have been fertile, ceased to develop at some point during incubation, or been unable to hatch themselves in time.

It’s a good idea to have a bright pen light for “candling” eggs. You can check all the eggs about half way through incubation time and know for sure, if and how many are developing.

The day the eggs are due to hatch you should be able to hear the chicks peeping inside as they start breathing and gain strength to break out of the shell.

There is limited oxygen inside the shell. Sometimes the eggs get too dehydrated which causes the membrane just inside the shell to harden, making hatching impossible for the chicks.

Opening the unhatched eggs will tell you for sure if there were chicks developing and at what point they failed.

Incubator temperature and humidity is important as well as egg turning; but the health of the hen that laid the eggs has a lot to do with survival through incubation and the strength of the chicks to hatch.

Since it’s impossible to tell if a fresh egg is fertile by looking at it, candling, during incubation, is a good way to check progress and know if you are wasting time and energy on infertile eggs.