Day 18 Lock Down Troubles

Prophecyx1

Songster
7 Years
Jan 17, 2016
58
32
121
Georgia
Every new day for my eggs starts at 3:00pm. Today at 3pm it became the 18th day, I candled the 8 eggs one last time, all seemed well and I placed the low dip in the air cell up "horizontally" of course. I increased the humidity and its sitting around 67%, because I heard once the eggs hatch humidity will increase any how, and I do not want it to be too moist. The temp is 100f to 101f, I am worried i might be doing something wrong? Can anybody confirm what I am doing is correct? It is a LG still air incubator.

I put pictures to show how they are set.



Right side 3 brown 1 white




Left side side 3 brown 1 white

 
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It sounds to me like you are doing fine! Everybody has different opinions on humidity but my incubator instructions say to keep humidity between 55 and 65% for hatching. I usually have pretty good luck with those levels. My opinion is that as long as humidity is under 80% your chicks should still hatch. But I think it is harder for the chicks to breath when the humidity is at the higher levels.
You are right in that the humidity will increase a lot as the wet chicks come out of the shell but I haven't found this to be a problem.
 
Awesome!, so do you as well agree with starting lockdown as soon as day 18 starts? I also plan on uploading updates to this post since I only have ~3 days :D
 
Most people do start lockdown on day 18. I do things a little differently than what is recommended. I keep a cool mist vaporizer going in my hatching room during the hatch so the the humidity levels are high, even if I open the incubator to candle or remove hatched chicks. I candle the eggs right up until they pip. I've done this all last year and had better luck than just locking down. I hatched over 250 babies last year. I don't recommend doing this unless you have a closed room that can keep the high humidity levels. But it has worked for me.
Hope I haven't confused you with TOO much information.
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Ah okay, so what would the approximate pipping point be if on day 18 the eggs were completley dark besides 1, and the air cell? It is day 19 just now at 3pm so should i be looking for pips in a couple of hours? Also, I really appreciate the info, thank you!
 
It's usually sometime in the 20th day when I see the first pip. But they won't hatch until 12 to 24 hours later. It takes time for the yolk to be absorbed and the blood vessels in the membrane to dry and disconnect.
 
Ah okay, well i saw a few eggs wiggling, so i am guessing they are internally pipping for the air cell! No external pips yet!
 

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