Well, I had a long hatch this weekend. Only wound up with 12 of 20, and all looked good at lockdown. It was a very staggered hatch. The first Polish hatched at 7:00PM on day 21, one Maran at 8:AM on day 22, then roughly a chick every few hours through the morning of day 23. There never was a flurry of activity, they seemed to just be coming out one at a time. Yesterday was day 23, and by the end of the day all of the live chicks were in the brooder. There was one pip left in the bator that had pipped that morning, but never progressed beyond geting it's beak through the hole. By 10 last night, it was barely moving. Call it cold hearted, but I've never had success helping one tthat never made it further than that. I shut the incubator down and removed the eggs. None of the other 7 had even pipped. They looked good candled at day 18, so I didn't even do eggtopsies. I would rather let them die in the shell than go through the trauma of culling more chicks.
The good: All that hatched are very healthy and active. No curled toes or splayed legs. I hatched one cuckoo maran from a large egg, and he is massive. He looks like a little silverback gorilla. I'm going to name him Coco. You older people may know who that is
The other thing that I love is the Ecoglow. This is my first time using it on fresh chicks, and I am very happy with it. It warms just like I expected, but the benefit I am noticing that I had not read about is that the chicks are much more calm and tame. Under heat lamps, my chicks have always started flitting around and trying to get away when I came in from above to check on them. With the Eco glow, they run out from under it as soon as they hear me, and run to my hand when I put it in the brooder. It really seems to keep them more calm and happy.
The bad: Trying to figure out why I had such a drawn out hatch with low results. I ran my humidity a little lower this time (35%) for the first 18 days, but I don't think that was the culprit. The chicks that did hatch were very healthy, and the shells looked nice and clean. My guess is low temperature. I have ordered a Spot Check to use on my next setting this Friday.
Anyway, that's my results. Here's a few pics of the gang
I had the same issue with my hatch this time around.. 18/23 hatched but was staggered over nearly three days! It seemed like it took forever for the little ones to pip and zip but the ones that hatched were very active and healthy. The very last one piped and zipped then got stuck but it is just as active as the first to hatch.
