So, after posting that no chicks hatched, I set out to start over. I got all 42 eggs out of the incubator and put them in a plastic bag to dispose of them. I then decided I really wanted to learn a little more about what and when the hatch went wrong. I wanted to see how far the chicks developed and if there were any deformities, etc. The first egg I cracked open was a sad thing. Inside was a fully formed, fully alive chick. It was kicking and I could see a steady heartbeat. I was dumbfounded and hated that I had killed this little guy, but I quickly put them all back into the incubator and started doing a little more research. I checked back over my daily notes, and double checked the start date to make sure I wasn’t off on the hatch date. I wasn’t, so then I looked at quite a few pictures of chick development and determined that the chick I broke out was at somewhere between 16 and 19 days into development. I knew that low temps could delay development, but my notes showed more ABOVE normal than BELOW normal. Since above normal accelerates development (if it doesn’t kill the chicks), I concluded that the two should cancel each other out. I am admittedly stumped, but I am going to keep incubating this batch for 5 more days, monitoring them for progress with the candler. It is best not to mess with eggs in the last couple of days before hatching, so I am going to pick a couple to monitor, so I can leave the others be. I am now really anxious to see what becomes of this hatch. It defies all the rules, but maybe we’ll have chicks yet!