Day 14 of Incubating Serama Chicken Eggs
I apologize to anyone that I did not update, at least, on day 7 as well. I had meant to do so, but life gets away from me quite often.
On day 7 I candled all the eggs for the first, official, time. At that time it was obvious there were a few that had not been fertilized. One egg seemed to be a touch behind the others as its eye was not as big as the other embryos, but sometimes they can be late. As day 7 is still a bit early, I left all eggs in the incubator and just marked the air sacs of all but the ones I could tell weren't fertilized. There were, however, two eggs that I had trouble seeing air sacs in but I could see an embryo so I left those, hoping it was just that the shell thickness and color made it difficult to see.
Day 10 was the next candle day. This is the first day many will remove non-viable eggs. I removed the four that had not been fertilized. One of them was a white-shelled egg, but when put over the light gave off a greenish-blue color. I could see the yolk, but it had this edge to it that made me think of the yolks of boiled eggs that had been cooked too long- you know, where the outside of the yolk turns gray? In the picture you can't see the color I'm talking about, but you see the dark mass at the top, that's the yolk. The other eggs that had not been fertilized did not have a dark yolk. Those other yolks were still a yellow/orange color.
On day 7 I candled all the eggs for the first, official, time. At that time it was obvious there were a few that had not been fertilized. One egg seemed to be a touch behind the others as its eye was not as big as the other embryos, but sometimes they can be late. As day 7 is still a bit early, I left all eggs in the incubator and just marked the air sacs of all but the ones I could tell weren't fertilized. There were, however, two eggs that I had trouble seeing air sacs in but I could see an embryo so I left those, hoping it was just that the shell thickness and color made it difficult to see.
Day 10 was the next candle day. This is the first day many will remove non-viable eggs. I removed the four that had not been fertilized. One of them was a white-shelled egg, but when put over the light gave off a greenish-blue color. I could see the yolk, but it had this edge to it that made me think of the yolks of boiled eggs that had been cooked too long- you know, where the outside of the yolk turns gray? In the picture you can't see the color I'm talking about, but you see the dark mass at the top, that's the yolk. The other eggs that had not been fertilized did not have a dark yolk. Those other yolks were still a yellow/orange color.
I cracked this one open and, sure enough, it was rotten.
Believe it or not, this was my first time ever seeing, or smelling, a rotten egg. It was awful!
After removing the four eggs I knew, for sure, were viable or could see something had begun but I wasn't sure if they had stopped or were just late, I wrote everything down. I was given 22 eggs and was down to 18. Here are a few pictures from day 10.
This particular egg, number 4, is a favorite of mine. Since I could not candle in a dark place, it's a bit hard to see much through this shell, but there is most definitely an embryo in there.
This one is actually one of my bad ones. It was hard to tell on day 10. It was difficult to tell just how far behind it was, so I left it in the incubator.
Egg #9. That dark spot to the left of the X is an eye!
#17 is one of my two smallest eggs. It also has a white shell so you can really see into it pretty well. The red line you see is a blood vessel.
This is the second of my smallest eggs, another white shelled one.
This egg was one that I waited to remove on day 14, today. As you can see, I outlined the embryo on day 10 to make sure. At this point I was fairly sure it was gone. No telling what caused it to die, but I really didn't expect this one would make it anyway. The egg shape was very narrow and, in my newbie mind, I just didn't see how well a chick would do in such a narrow space once it got too big.
These two pictures are of egg #20. As I am so new, I didn't want to toss an egg thinking it wasn't viable only to find out it had been. Though, it's pretty obvious something started, but didn't go much further. I removed it today.
A second one that I wasn't sure was still viable or not. You can see there's more in this one than in #20. I outlined where I thought the embryo was to help me look the next time. It still looked like this today so I removed it.
Today I removed four eggs I kept in the incubator just in case. That meant of the 22 eggs I had been given, 8 have not made it, but only 4 of those weren't even fertilized. So really, only lost 4 eggs so far (hopefully that's it).
I didn't take pictures of all the good ones because there really was no point, not unless I wanted to really show air sac development. Only a few eggs had shells that would allow me to see much of anything. The others had shells too thick or of a dark enough shade that it made it too difficult to see anything if I took a picture. I should have gotten a picture of the white eggs as well. I'll get those on day 17 when I candle again. For now, this is the only one I got of a good egg.
See? Not much to see there. The darkest area is where the chick has taken up space. I doubt I'll get almost any light outside of the air sac on day 17.
However, I did get a video of #4. I mentioned this particular egg is my favorite. That is because it is the most active. Here are links to the video I took today and the first video I got that showed me just how active it was. I've labeled the egg "Fun" just because it was rocking back and forth the first video. I'm hoping to keep track of it after it has hatched so I can see if it continues to be my most active one.
A lot of the chicks were pretty still when I was candling them, but if I talk to them or sing to them, they'll start moving some. That's why I talked to this egg. It was moving before I took the video and you could see the little feet, but it stopped when I turned the camera on. It's difficult to tell that those are the feet moving in there, though.
And then here is a video from what looks to be day 10 or 11. It is one of the two smallest eggs and it has a white shell so you can really see it.
Aside from all that, the only other news about the incubating eggs is that I have moved 3 to one of my sister's broody hens. A few days after I began incubating the eggs, one of the California White hens my sister has went broody. She's the first one to do so. Last Saturday my sister and I finally moved her to my house and put her in a quite, linoleum floored room that's off the room I call the den.
Moving a broody hen can be precarious because sometimes the stress of the move and taking them away from their flock can cause so much stress it'll break them of being broody. This one had already been sitting for well over a week so she was pretty serious. When we moved her here we found her comb to have a purple-red tinge to the tips. I looked it up and it could be for any number of reasons. I figured I'll keep an eye on her and see if there is a difference after she's well and settled in before I do anything else. Stress is one of the causes and we knew she'd been being messed with by the other hens. They have 2 favorite nesting boxes but now that the broody hen was in one, they all demanded to lay their eggs in that one. So the hen almost never got off the nest. My sister would have to take her off once a day to go eat, drink, and poop.
I was afraid she wouldn't take the eggs I gave her. I gave her my three biggest ones. After checking on her a 2nd time Saturday night I felt pretty confident she'd take the eggs. I had tried to take them to put them back in the incubator and she made an angry noise at me, even though she wasn't sitting on the eggs, just squatting over them. When I checked her the next morning she was all puffed out over them! Her comb had also begun to change back to its normal red, so that made me very happy to know she was feeling safe and content.
She had been puffed up and making warning noises at me when I went in to check on her Sunday morning, but the moment she saw my camera she got curious. The white ones are incredibly curious. She's also very happy with the soft dish mat I gave her. I had to put it in there because I noticed an egg had been sitting on one of the holes in the crate and I worried it would get crushed. Whereas before when I put the eggs in the crate she went to them very slowly, she was much more enthusiastic about getting in the crate once I put the mat in!
That's it for this post. I promise to update again on day 17 when I candle again. There may not be much to tell, though. Until then!
That's it for this post. I promise to update again on day 17 when I candle again. There may not be much to tell, though. Until then!
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