Backyard Fowl Keepers

HenHaven wrote: Wed Feb 05, 2025 9:55 am Ive been experimenting with hatching chicken eggs to understand what can be done to them and still get successful hatches. Recently, I encountered a puzzling issue where I had a 25% mortality rate in late-term embryos after water candling, something I hadnt experienced before. However, I saw the same results in two subsequent hatches, even though I didnt water candle and was frequently turning the eggs. The common factor was the cold weather.

For context, my previous experiments with fridge eggs yielded excellent development, but I didnt take them all the way to hatching. However, the last three hatchesover 50 eggs in totalhappened during the winter months (December/January), with ambient temperatures in the pens around 32F. I collected eggs every couple of days, and although I didnt freeze them, they were stored in cold conditions for 48-72 hours.

Normally, I have less than 10% late embryonic death or failure to hatch, but in these colder conditions, the hatch rate dropped to 25-40%. Even though development seemed good, the cold storage appears to have significantly impacted hatch rates.

The main takeaway here is that if youre collecting hatching eggs during freezing or near-freezing temperatures, try to gather them multiple times a day to reduce exposure to the cold. Additionally, avoid storing hatching eggs in the fridge as it seems to reduce hatch rates. If youre hatching eggs from cold or fridge-stored conditions, be prepared for lower hatch rates and consider hatching extra eggs to offset this.