Well, the eggs are 2 weeks into their incubation and it’s
time for me to candle them again. Although all the eggs revealed developing embryos
in their first week, it doesn’t mean that the embryos will still be growing at
week 2.
There are lots of reasons for premature death in developing
chicks and the majority of them involve temperature or humidity problems in the
incubation process. Death in the first stages of incubation can also be as a
result of eggs being stored for too long before incubation, but if you use a
good quality automatic incubator and rotate your stored eggs, then this tends
not to happen.
The blood supply is just visible |
Keeping the eggs and the incubator warm and humid while
candling the eggs is important at this time of year and, as I keep my incubator
in an unheated utility room, I have to take great care that my eggs don’t
suffer a severe drop in temperature when I check for life.
It’s day 15 for my eggs today and a lot has happened in the
last week. The beak has developed, along with the legs, wings, toes and neck
and the embryo clearly resembles a chick. Down begins to grow and the bird’s
skeleton begins to calcify. The size of the air sac within the shell has
increased and the chicks have rotated so that their heads are at the round end
of the egg.
Any chicks that have survived this far, have a strong chance
of hatching as healthy chicks so its fingers crossed for hatch day!