Infertile Eggs means No Chicks!

Another update on the Havo-Bator incubator that we had 42 eggs in.  We now have 29 eggs.  The rest just didn't fertilize.  For obvious reasons, either the rooster was lazy or the hens didn't "take".  Or perhaps the eggs had got chilled, whatever.  Half this incubator was to be our friends chicks, and half ours.  The results aren't near what I was hoping and praying for, but I will keep praying for the rest of the eggs to mature.  I have added 6 little bantam eggs to the incubator and they seem good.

The first batch of chicks will start hatching April 7-8, 2nd batch around April 15-16.  Once we see the results of batch #1, I may start another incubator full for a late hatch in April.

I'll keep you posted.  You should have seen my face as I was cracking open those empty eggs...just hoping that they were empty and that I wasn't cracking open a live one!  Oh if I were to kill a chick!  yuck!  Thankfully, in an awful way, they were all duds!

How did I know they weren't fertile?  After a few days-week in the incubator, you can clearly see "stuff" in the egg.  You take the egg to a dark room, or under your bed covers and by using a small flashlight, you can look inside the egg.  It looks like a dark circle (eye) and a blob with a long tail (spine).  These were just nothing... no darkness.

Non fertilized eggs come from
1. Non active rooster or
2. Old hens
 3. Chilled eggs?
Lesson learned.