Rochelle Day
In the Brooder
- Apr 10, 2022
- 8
- 15
- 21
I am not having much luck incubating eggs lately. I changed incubators. Still have trouble. Out of 56 eggs I end up with maybe a dozen chicks. These hatch early without trouble. Then a bunch of chicks pip and zip but the membrane gets sticky and hard. It adheres to the chick and they cannot escape. Other chicks die without pip, some shrink wrapped but not all.
In a few forums "they" said to increase humidity to 50, and for the last 3 days up to 55 or 60. Still no luck. In another forum they said it's from opening the incubator to take out the chicks and suggest leaving the chicks alone for 48 - 72 hours. Usually my eggs start hatching on the 20th day and I'm counting that 48 hours from the first one hatching. Ok I left them alone for 48 hours. Because of the chicks hatching the humidity did get even higher than the setting. I adjusted the vent but it stayed high like 70%.
At 48 hours, one of the hatched chicks died and the others seem to be getting very agitated running around frantically, disturbing the rest of the eggs. I could see that 10 more eggs had pipped and zipped and were experiencing the hardened membrane syndrome without my opening the incubator. So that wasn't the problem after all. And since the humidity is high, this problem is not being caused by low humidity.
I gave up and opened the incubator to help those out of their shell. I was able to save another 8 chicks. On opening the other eggs I found a few that didn't develop but the majority did. About half were shrink wrapped, squeezed into a small package, and the other half look completely normal but no pip. A couple seemed very wet inside. All dead chicks. Very sad.
My hens are several different breeds and many are barnyard cross I hatched myself over the years. I've never had problems incubating until I changed to only BCM roosters. At first, I was incubating only the dark colored eggs and I thought that might have been my problem, so I started doing half dark and the rest a mixture. But still have the same problems. The dark eggs are definitely less successful but this effects all colors of egg. Two friends tried incubating my eggs and had exactly the same results. Different incubators, different treatment but the same results.
I doubted that the rooster could effect the egg's hatch-ability, but that is the only common denominator. Maybe they produce weak chicks that take too long to hatch but I've read about hatches proceeding slowly over a couple days without these problems.
I've bought chicks of various breeds, raised them, bred them to my BCM roosters and the same thing happened. I got rid of those roosters and bought more BCM roosters and the same thing happened again: shrink wrap, sticky tough membrane, low success rate.
If it's not my incubator, not low humidity, not my opening the incubator, what the heck is the problem?
In a few forums "they" said to increase humidity to 50, and for the last 3 days up to 55 or 60. Still no luck. In another forum they said it's from opening the incubator to take out the chicks and suggest leaving the chicks alone for 48 - 72 hours. Usually my eggs start hatching on the 20th day and I'm counting that 48 hours from the first one hatching. Ok I left them alone for 48 hours. Because of the chicks hatching the humidity did get even higher than the setting. I adjusted the vent but it stayed high like 70%.
At 48 hours, one of the hatched chicks died and the others seem to be getting very agitated running around frantically, disturbing the rest of the eggs. I could see that 10 more eggs had pipped and zipped and were experiencing the hardened membrane syndrome without my opening the incubator. So that wasn't the problem after all. And since the humidity is high, this problem is not being caused by low humidity.
I gave up and opened the incubator to help those out of their shell. I was able to save another 8 chicks. On opening the other eggs I found a few that didn't develop but the majority did. About half were shrink wrapped, squeezed into a small package, and the other half look completely normal but no pip. A couple seemed very wet inside. All dead chicks. Very sad.
My hens are several different breeds and many are barnyard cross I hatched myself over the years. I've never had problems incubating until I changed to only BCM roosters. At first, I was incubating only the dark colored eggs and I thought that might have been my problem, so I started doing half dark and the rest a mixture. But still have the same problems. The dark eggs are definitely less successful but this effects all colors of egg. Two friends tried incubating my eggs and had exactly the same results. Different incubators, different treatment but the same results.
I doubted that the rooster could effect the egg's hatch-ability, but that is the only common denominator. Maybe they produce weak chicks that take too long to hatch but I've read about hatches proceeding slowly over a couple days without these problems.
I've bought chicks of various breeds, raised them, bred them to my BCM roosters and the same thing happened. I got rid of those roosters and bought more BCM roosters and the same thing happened again: shrink wrap, sticky tough membrane, low success rate.
If it's not my incubator, not low humidity, not my opening the incubator, what the heck is the problem?
