Baby chick killed other chicks?

[Madalex11]

So here is my problem.... I read the entire thing about letting chicks hatch on their own, well last night one hatched and three others had pipped the shell, I left the original in the hovabator to dry out a little before moving to my brooding box, when I woke up this morning all 3 chicks still in shell were no longer moving and when opened were dead, and the original chick that hatched had moved all the other eggs around. What should I do from now on, take the hatched ones out immediately or wait again, I still have 4 eggs that should hatch, or should I wait and let the hatch ones dry out. They are buff orpingtons, next week I am due to hatch blue laced wyandotts, and rir the following week.

 

[shellyga]

I have had chicks pip but failed to hatch.. I don't think the one hatched chick killed them.. they just failed to thrive. Most of the time the humidity or something was a little off when I have the pip-deaths. I noticed a higher percentage in eggs shipped to me versus my own eggs. Maybe the postal process weakened the embroys.

When I had my first experience with it.. I was advised to super clean my hatcher to make sure there wasn't some bacteria in there affecting the pips chicks since I had back to back (to back) hatches..make sure my humidy was good to prevent srink wrapped chicks.. and to make sure your temperatures are steady.

I'll be watching to see what people with more exerience advise you to do.

Shelly

 

[Madalex11]

Thank you shelly, but the one chick that had hatched didnot inhibit the hatch of the others when it had bumped into all the other eggs that were in the incubator? I thought they shouldn't be turned or moved the last 3 days of incubation.

 

[shellyga]

I have had hatches with 15+ dry and drying chicks bumping eggs around and the rest of the pipped eggs continued to hatch without issue. Just my experience.

Shelly

 

[Madalex11]

Thank you again shelly

 

[MuckyPuppy]

On my first hatch, My first two chicks were knocking eggs all over the place. The next three hatched without any problems. Unfortunately, I had to remove the five chicks as one was dying in the incubator. This caused the four pipped eggs to shrink wrap and I had to then help them all out of their shells.

I do think that this time around I'll be using egg cartons for lockdown.

Edited:

 

[Gypsy07]

It's definitely best if the eggs aren't moved during lockdown, but once the first chick hatches it will usually play football with the other ones and roll them all over the place. I think the only way this can do the others much damage is if your humidity has been slightly too high throughout your whole incubation, and there's still some fluid left inside the eggs. If they get rolled over, the hatching chicks can sometimes drown in the excess fluid still inside the egg.

But like Shelly says, a lot of the time you just get chicks that are fully developed but don't ever pip, or chicks that do pip but then die before they hatch, and it's for no real reason. As in, most likely there's nothing you could have done or should have done but didn't that would have made any difference.

If the kicking around of eggs makes you nervous (like me!) you can do carton hatching. That keeps each of the eggs held in place and means any hatched chicks can scramble over them but not actually move them. Also it's easier to keep track of which egg is which and gives you a good view when they hatch.

 

[eeyore75]

How is your air flow? Do you have the incubator sealed up too much? If they can't get enough air- they will die too.

 

[Madalex11]

Its a model1588 with a fan, should I open one of theports on the top?

 

[pinknose]

I had the same thing happen. One of my chicks hatched and moved all the other 4 pipped ones around. I didn't open the incubator as instructed, and all of them died except one. I know there was probably another problem such as humidity ect...., but having the one live chick bouncing all the other ones around couldn't have been any help either! Next time I plan on using a hatching tray to control this problem and eliminate this as a cause....