Silkie eggs due to hatch this weekend! Advice needed!

LivReigns said:

This is my first time hatching eggs and raising them myself. Ive always had a broody hen to do that for me. There are fourteen in the incubator due to hatch Saturday, 14 of them. After they hatch, whats the best course? I have a brooder I made myself, with the lamp included. Ive heard silkie chicks are hard to keep alive and i want to make sure there's nothing I'm missing.

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LivReigns said:

So Saturday was the 21 day mark and it came and went and no hatching, despite being candled five days before and all being very well developed. I followed the incubation directions correctly. I don't know what else to do.

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LivReigns said:

Well, I'd love the help.. I have a Janoel 12 incubator. The instructions were just to keep the temp running at 99.5, and its stayed that temperature the entire time. It told me to take the tray out and put the eggs on the bottom 5 days before hatching. It told me to put water in every 2 days, and I did that too.

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AmyLynn2374 said:

That is a forced air incubator right? Have you candled the eggs yet to see if you can see any signs of life?  I'd start there. Do you plan on doing eggtopsies on the egg?  If you can handle them, they can be helpful in pointing out the possible reasons.  Are you using an idependant checked thermometer in the bator?  I am assuming that you didn't monitor the humidity other than adding water every two days. (I really wished these companies would stop giving instructions like this.) A big factor is, are these shipped eggs or local eggs???


The first thing you want to do, is have your own checked and accurate thermometer. I keep two in my bator. Never trust a thermometer that hasn't been checked, even the digital readouts on the incubators.  Janoels have a better reputation than some of the others, but any incubator can have it's settings and readouts thrown off in shipping/transportation. So you want to verify that the temps are accurate. Most experienced hatchers have a thermometer that's been checked, or can be checked to use as a guide for all others.

Humidity- this is where those manuals do new hatchers a BIG injustice. Different levels work for different people because there are many variances between the hatchers. The incubator companies do not take this into consideration. Your environment/climate, your hatching habits, egg and shell quality and size, will all effect what you need for humidity.  Say we both have the same bator, but live in very different climates. If I am in a dry climate, adding water every two days may give me 30-35% humidity, which may work perfectly fine for my eggs.  If you live in a more humid area, adding that much water could give you 50-60% humidity, which would probably cause multiple drowned chicks come time to hatch. And that's only one variable. I highly suggest having a hygrometer  as a guide. (Many people use the cheaper ones that you can get in the reptile section at the pet stores and say they work great.) Here's my answer to figuring out humidity: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity   This is the method I use and I swear by it.  (BTW, I run dry when I can, prefering 30% humidity the first 17 days.)

Most people go into lockdown at day 18, (3 days prior rather than the 5 your book tells you.) That's when they remove the eggs from the turners and lay them down and higher the humidity. (I use 75%+ for lockdown.)  I also stop turning at day 14 instead of the more popular day 18.

I will also give you a hatching guide from a hands on perspective. This is my philosophy: http://hatching411.weebly.com/

Now, I will say when I did my silkie eggs, they were really small compared to my standard eggs and I had to raise my humidity for the first 17 days to between 40-45% so that they weren't loosing too much moisture and my air cells were not growing too big too fast.

I hope some of this might help in future hatches.

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LivReigns said:

I'm going to candle them and see if there's any signs of life. The eggs aren't from a hatchery, they're from my own silkies. I do have another thermometer inside of the incubator aside from the digital readout. I live in North Carolina and it is humid here though my incubator is indoors and the humidity is much lower in here. I bought another meter yesterday to measure the humidity. I'm going to look over the guides you gave me and start new.

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AmyLynn2374 said:

I hope you have much more success next time around and keep us posted so we know how it goes. Any time you're looking for help you can pop over to the hands on thread, there's usually someone around that can get you an answer fairly timely.  It's here, if you want it: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1081034/hands-on-hatching-and-help

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