I doubt he will follow that one. Doesn't add to the post count...
Hey AmyLynn,
I had 2 pips before I left for work. My wife called and said one hatched before she left for work. Neither of us will be home for the next 9 hours or so. Whatever will the little fella do? No one to take him out, all alone. My goodness, he may actually dry out in there. How in the world can they hatch if I'm not there to chew my nails off?
I just think that egg was probably more porous. I had TWO silkie eggs that did that in my last hatch. One of those things that you can't adjust for because the majority was good and had plenty of moisture. More than likely the spike in the loss of moisture happened after lockdown anyway. The two I had looked fine at lockdown, 2 days later the air cell was 3/4 of the egg and they were shrinkwrapped just like your little guy.I'm totally open to feedback and I really appreciate it. The problem with my temp spike was my 3 yo. When you have chicks hatching a 3 yo it's hard to keep them away.I'm building a new bigger bator with an automatic turner I found localy for $25. I will start with some neighbors sexlink eggs. (I know they won't be sexlink chicks
) and sell them as backyard chickens.
There were some with the beak under the wing and some with their face next to the membrane. I won't continue to do eggtopsies as long as I can find out what went wrong. Thanks you for the feedback.
Thank you Amy. I'm not so worried about the early quitters, that happens. I didn't expect 100% hatch, but I do expect more than 50% from a good batch of eggs. I'm happy with a successful first hatch, but I'm shooting for 75%-80% in the future. Do you think I ran the incubator too dry with the shrink wrapped guy? Or is it just that some will be shrink wrapped and some won't? Like you said, some were really wet.
You two are always welcome to hijack my threads. Heck, this isn't even my thread!
So it seems the general consensus is temp spike? I can live with that since I found a better place to put it away from my sweet 3yo.
Hopefully you will. Here's the deal though, even if day 21 rolls around and no pips, there's not much you can do that is going to "save" the chicks. When someone goes in before a chick has even pipped will almost inevetibly end badly and here's why: The chick is not ready. The chick's vascular system between egg and chick does not shut down completely until HOURS after the chick has made the external pip. Trying to help before this process is complete, carries the probability of making the chick bleed out w/in a matter of a couple of minutes. Any chance that the chick had of hatching on it's own, (even if a bit late) is then taken away from it. We can't save them all, and a chick that hasn't even pipped seldom is going to survive an assist.
I dont really, just want the to be as happy as can be. It was the egg shells by the way, whole family says they cant smell anything anymore.
