Incubating & Hatching wild bird eggs?

[CutieePiee]

Anyone have experience with hatching bird eggs?

We found a bird's nest in our dryer vent a week ago and unfortunately it had to be removed. In it, we found 6 light blue eggs with light brown specks (not sure what breed). One egg was dropped last week (which I was so devastated about ). As for the five other eggs, I've been incubating them under a reptile/fishtank lamp at 100 degrees and with moist towels undernerath.

I've been doing a little research, as I haven't had any previous experience with bird eggs. All 5 eggs' air cells seem to be on the wrong end of the egg... the top narrow part. And the yolk seems to be a little runny, which I'm hoping the yolk sac is not broken. However, I've seen signs of an embryo inside by the candling test. If there are any veins, they are very hard to see. I just would like to know if a runny yolk that moves when an egg is tipped is an unsuccessful egg?

[Silvanon]

I've raised a lot of birds, though I never tried to hatch them myself.  Candling is an imprecise science at best, even after years of experience I still had surprises.  Be sure to turn the eggs over a few times a day, they need that.  And if one hatches before the others don't throw the others away, they're laid a few days apart and so will hatch on different days.  If nothing has hatched after a month you can be pretty sure they're not viable.

Very young baby birds are exceptionally difficult to keep alive when you're hand-feeding, be prepared for losses even if they do hatch.  If they make it past the first week, they're much more likely to survive.  Your local Petsmart/Petco will have cans of dried baby bird formula (Kaytee or another brand) that you can feed to the baby bird.  A syringe dropper is generally the best means to feed a new baby - their mouths are very very small, and if you're not precise you can end up getting food over their nose instead.  I recommend mixing with part pedialyte instead of just plain water, because baby birds dehydrate easily when they're hand-fed.  You can clearly see the croup on baby birds - transparent sacks that run along either side of the neck.  When feeding, you want to continue until one side is all full, you don't need or want to fill both sides.  When the sack is mostly empty again, it's time to feed again (usually in 2-3 hours).

[Daimas]

bird eggs need turned for the first while, It helps to turn the Chazala* the white thick goo when you crack a chicken egg*, if thats loose it can cause the egg to be runny.

Look up sites on incubating chickens and other common foul.^^

[CutieePiee]

Thanks, Silv. You seem quite knowledgable about birds. ^^

Yes, I've been turning my eggs every few hours a day. I'm just worried that the yolk sac was broken... since it moves when I move the egg. I would think it would be suspended in one area? I'll take a pic of my candling and upload if I can later.

As for raising the baby birds... My aunt has raised birds as pets and I've seen her feed them when they've hatched. She's agreed to take on that responsibility IF and once my eggies hatch... which I'm grateful for. ^^

Thank you for your advice!

[Kahlira]

I know nothing about raising babies by hand feeding them.

But I think you may have Robin or Starling eggs. Both are small and blue, and in some cases Starlings have speckles.

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSvTBleVH9llBkHKh21tv5DiZUdy73j1bDQwrbK3JdghcehhJr1Fw

[toffeeca]

I was looking around and didn't find much information, except for, apparently raising baby birds is illegal, but I think that you might have mockingbird eggs, since you said that they have the brown spots.
http://www.whatbird.com/forums/forums/thread/84605.aspx