Air sac?!

[Hannnaahh]

It is Day 17 for my little chick and I candled her this morning and the air sac looked the size of a Day 7 air sac! I don't know what to do! I know that it is probably because my humidity is too high but I've barely put any water in the bottom of my Little Giant incubator.

 

[4chickns]

What has your humidity been reading throughout the past 17 days? A picture would definitely help, too.

 

[Hannnaahh]

Sorry, I couldn't get the greatest pictures. My humidity has been reading 39%-45% during the incubation... But that is the reading on my incubator's hydrometer ... I've been wanting to get a separate hydrometer but have been too busy... Although, I'm pretty sure that I'm getting one today.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

What has your humidity been reading throughout the past 17 days? A picture would definitely help, too.

xs 2 The only thing you can do at this point is run dry for a couple days and if there are no pips push lockdown back to day 19 and give the egg(s) an extra day running dry. Exception:If you have more eggs and the majority are where they need to be and there is a single or minority amount that look smaller, then you would adjust for the majority and hope for the best with the minority.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Sorry, I couldn't get the greatest pictures. My humidity has been reading 39%-45% during the incubation... But that is the reading on my incubator's hydrometer ... I've been wanting to get a separate hydrometer but have been too busy... Although, I'm pretty sure that I'm getting one today.

The best way to show how big your air cell is is when you candle it, mark the air cell (with a pencil, by tracing it) and then take a pic of the egg withe the air cell marked. It's easier to see in the pic than an actual candling pic. It s also easier to judge the size based on the percentage of the air cell to the egg and not just the air cell itself.

 

[Hannnaahh]

I have 6 other eggs that are only on Day 5 because I got excited when I saw how produced my one egg is... I had others with the most produced one but they didn't look like they were producing so I threw them out, not wanting them to explode.

 

[Hannnaahh]

Here ya go.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Here ya go.

Yeah, that's small. The problem is, you said that you have 6 other eggs in there that are on day 5. That have different humidity needs. I would go ahead and run dry for 24 hours, check the other 6 eggs and make sure they look ok. If they do, go ahead and run dry for day 18-19 as well (as long as this guy does not pip.) Go into lockdown at day 19. (Hopfully running dry 2 days will give this one time to increase the air cell. If after one day dry it looks significantly bigger, then go ahead into lockdown normally at the end of day 18.) The running dry shouldn't harm the others and will probably be beneficial to them because you need to go into lockdown for this one and that means highering the humidity to 65% at least which is going to stop the others from loosing what they need for that time period. As soon as you get this one hatched. I would get him out and get that humidity back down around 30/35% for those other eggs and monitor the air cells at least by day 14 if not before so you give yourself more time to adjust if you need to.

 

[4chickns]

That does look pretty small to me. Are you running the incubator in a humid room, like a basement? Amylynn gives some of the best advice on incubation, running your incubator dry, trying to get the humidity down for another day or two is probably all you can do. I'm wondering if your hygrometer is off because 40% humidity doesn't seem that bad to me, but I'm certainly no expert. Good luck, keep us posted on how the little guy does.

 

[Hannnaahh]

Okay, I will do that... Thank you.