Slow Developing Eggs

[Hannah15]

Hi, I have a bunch of eggs in a couple of incubators at the moment (an Rcom and a Brinsea, so good quality). Most of the eggs are doing great, and temp and humidity have never been a problem. However, the eggs from one specific breeding pen are not developing well. They receive the same care as my other birds. I've never incubated eggs from these birds before (except a couple in the winter, which also died, but I wasn't totally surprised). I think they are 3 years old.

Their eggs appeared to be several days behind in development. They would have been 17 days today. I removed three of them yesterday because they had obviously died sometime over the previous two days. I started with 8, and am down to 3. Up until that point, they were very active embryos, just looked much smaller than they should have. Two of the eggs that are left look much closer to how they should look at this point, but the other one might actually be dead (didn't see it move last night) and does look too small.

I need chicks from these birds. Outcrossing is possible, although, I would prefer to have "backups" before doing that. Any other ideas? I bought the parents as shipped eggs. They developed and hatched just fine, if I remember correctly they actually hatched at a relatively high percentage for shipped eggs.

 

[HuskerHens18]

Is it a possibility at all your temp is too low? That's my first thought, I'm not very intelligent with incubating yet.

 

[Hannah15]

No. I've used the incubators before, and trust the thermometers. Further, the other eggs in the same incubators (at the same time) are developing at a normal rate. Thanks though.

 

[HuskerHens18]

No. I've used the incubators before, and trust the thermometers. Further, the other eggs in the same incubators (at the same time) are developing at a normal rate. Thanks though.

Maybe it's just genetics or quality of the embryo, something out of your control? Hopefully someone of more experience can come along and give you actual help

 

[Ridgerunner]

You said they all receive the same care, I assume that means they are eating the same thing. So nutrition should not be an issue. Fertility is not the issue, it's viability after they start to develop.

Are they perhaps Araucana? Araucana have a fatal gene when it pairs up in the embryo.

How many breeding birds do you have in that pen, male and female? Especially are the eggs from different hens? It's possible there is some genetic deficiency that causes the embryo to die.

This is a real stretch. Could you switch breeding pens with other birds and see if that makes any difference with either group? That should eliminate one potential variable.

I don't know why you expected failure with that winter attempt, but discounting that this is a one off. I try to avoid making too many generalizations with that small of a data base. You might try some more eggs to see if it is consistent.

If it does have to do with the parents I'd be nervous introducing those genes into my flock.

 

[Hannah15]

Hi. Thanks for the post. Hopefully, I'll answer everything. They are Belgian d'Uccles and yes they eat the same thing. There is one rooster over four hens (and yes, there are at least three hens that were laying). The problem is that they are a new-ish color (to the US), so it is not possible for me to replace them with completely unrelated birds, although I do have other colors that I could cross them on.

As far as the eggs in the winter, it was a couple years ago, and there were only a couple of eggs. I just remember not being convinced they would get far. Probably related to the fact that my husband was collecting eggs, and he's not very good at doing so promptly. They might have been some of their first eggs too.

I will set more eggs from them, (I know that the numbers were relatively small) but need to wait till I have some incubator space open up. And yes, moving them is a good idea. I'll try that.