Questions about lockdown period

[Ashley & Donna Dame]

Good morning everyone. We are doing our very first hatch. It's our own eggs. A bantam silky and a cross between a sex link and easter egger rooster.
We are on day 20, and like so many am feeling very anxious and nervous. We candled the eggs before lockdown and both chicks were doing well.
We have the temp between 98 and 99, and the humidity is between 65 and 71.
A couple questions.

1. Do the chicks move less during this time to save their energy for hatching. We feel like we see the eggs jiggle from time to time but I don't know if it's just my eyes playing tricks on me.

2. Does the chicks give off more humidity during this time? I ask because the humidity was staying about 65% and over night it went to 70%.

I am at the glass looking constantly and being diligent about not opening the incubator or touching the eggs. I know this is a crucial time.

Just looking for a bit of reassurance I guess.

 

[sylviethecochin]

1. Do the chicks move less during this time to save their energy for hatching. We feel like we see the eggs jiggle from time to time but I don't know if it's just my eyes playing tricks on me.
As the chicks move around, getting into position, pipping through the interior membrane, the eggs do wobble around a bit. All it should mean is that you have lie chicks.

2. Does the chicks give off more humidity during this time? I ask because the humidity was staying about 65% and over night it went to 70%.

They should be absorbing a little more humidity, as the shells get thinner and the membrane needs moisturised. Anyway, 70% humidity should be just about perfect for hatch. I'd leave it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It is an anxious time isn't it? Especially the first time. Your anxiety levels will drop some for your next hatch but they never totally go away. It's an exciting time. How many will hatch? What colors will they be? It can be addicting.

Don't try to read too much into whether they are moving or any of that. They move to get into position to hatch. It's not about saving energy, they are just getting into position. A lot of the time you don't see that unless you just happen to be looking at the right time.

I'm not sure why the humidity went up like that. Did a front come through that raised the moisture level in the outside air? I've had huge jumps or drops in humidity from that. It could be something else.

When a chick zips and hatches a lot of extra moisture is released as it dries off. I've had humidity jump from 65% to over 85% when several hatch about the same time. Before they zip and release extra moisture the egg and chick are not going to cause any spikes in humidity. Even when the humidity jumps way up there during hatch the later chicks do fine. The only effect that higher humidity has at that point is that it takes the chicks a little longer to dry off. With only two eggs and that big incubator don't expect the chicks hatching to change your humidity levels much if any. You will notice 10 or 15 chicks though.

I know it won't make you feel any better until you see a chick but it really sounds like things are going great. Good luck!

 

[Ashley & Donna Dame]

Thanks for the responses.

Yes it is an anxious time indeed. The waiting game is craziness. Lol. We see little wiggles here and there. Today's day 20, so I am sure they are getting themselves prepared.
I am praying it isn't a situation that takes up to 25 days. Hoping tomorrow may show us a pip, but we will see.
I will post pics of the chicks as long as everything goes ok.

 

[Ashley & Donna Dame]

A quick update. Both eggs have pipped. So the waiting begins. They are both chirping and wiggling, just no zip yet.

 

[Sexy chicken lady]

I set my eggs on 13h00. I am approaching day 18 at 13h00 today and would like to know at what time in day 18 do I lockdown. This is also my very first incubation and am unsure as I have read it must be at the end of day 18 only.

Please help as I would really like to get it right. I have 22 eggs that have all shown growth. I also will be candling them before I put them in lockdown

The supplier of my incubator said I don't need to up the humidity and that I can keep it as is. 60 - 65% . But of what I have read it does seem to me that I would have to up the humidity to at least 70 - 75% . (Anyway that is also what my gut feeling tells me).

 

[Ashley & Donna Dame]

Good morning, the anxiety from all of the process can be overwhelming. We had 100% hatch rate. Of course there was only two eggs, but we did it. So excited. Our little silkie just hatched about 20 minutes ago.

Anyways, there is a wealth of information on the internet. Some can be quite confusing. We went with the info that made sense.

We actually did our lockdown on day 17. We brought the humidity up from about 45% to 65% and higher at times. Our temp pretty much stayed at 99 degree's.

We were diligent about not touching the eggs from that point. The only time I did was at day 21 (yesterday) I turned down the light and gently set my flashlight on top on each to be sure there was movement.

Other than that the chicks did their own hatching.

 

[Altfrizzle]

60-65% for incubation is high. What incubator reccomends that?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I set my eggs on 13h00. I am approaching day 18 at 13h00 today and would like to know at what time in day 18 do I lockdown. This is also my very first incubation and am unsure as I have read it must be at the end of day 18 only.

Please help as I would really like to get it right. I have 22 eggs that have all shown growth. I also will be candling them before I put them in lockdown

The supplier of my incubator said I don't need to up the humidity and that I can keep it as is. 60 - 65% . But of what I have read it does seem to me that I would have to up the humidity to at least 70 - 75% . (Anyway that is also what my gut feeling tells me).

The exact timing of lockdown is not that important. When you go into lockdown you stop turning the eggs. If you wished you could stop turning them a few days earlier, that timing is not that critical. The main reasons you turn them is that it helps body parts form in the right places and it stops the yolk or developing chick from touching the inside of the egg shell and getting stuck. By about 14 days the body parts have formed and a membrane has developed around the chick that protects it from sticking to the shell. If you wanted to you could stop turning after 14 days, it will not harm the chick at all.

It’s fairly important that the egg loses a certain amount of moisture before it hatches. The air cell needs to grow big enough so the chick can breathe the air in it after internal pip long enough to finish doing other things it needs to do before hatch. But if the incubator is too dry during hatch that membrane that protects the chick from sticking to the inside of the shell can dry up and shrink, we call that shrink wrap. That dried-out membrane prevents the chick from moving so it can hatch. That’s why we up the humidity during lockdown and many of us advise against opening the incubator during hatch unless you have a real reason to open it.

The good news with the moisture loss is that there is a fairly wide range of moisture loss that works. Some people weight the eggs to monitor moisture loss and adjust humidity during incubation. I think their target is 13% weight loss due to the moisture loss. Others candle the eggs and keep track of how the air cell grows. I don’t do either of those, I monitor humidity. They have their targets, the closer to the ideal the better, but even if they are a little high or low they can still get great hatches. You don’t have to be that precise.

One of the problems with just monitoring humidity is that different humidities work best for different ones of us. There are a lot of different reasons for that. Even the same make and model of incubator can have different “sweet spots” for the best humidity let alone different makes and models or whether it is forced air or still air. Height above sea level du rot different air pressures can affect it. The moisture level and temperature of the air going into the incubator can have an effect. Where it is set in the incubation groom can have an effect. I started out higher but through trial and error and opening unhatched eggs I’ve determined my best humidity is around 39 to 40%. During lockdown anything above 65% works quite well. People that open their incubator during lockdown sometimes go with a higher moisture level.

That 65% during the incubation phase sounds high to me but if that’s the recommendation of the incubator manufacturer it’s a reasonable humidity to use, at least the first time. If you do have hatching problems due to high humidity you might try something lower next time. At this point you can’t do anything about it anyway. It’s quite possible that in your circumstances it will work fine. Sure hope so.

To your original question, I’ll ask if you are counting the days right. That’s a very common mistake made on here. An egg does not have a day’s worth of development when it is first put in the incubator. It takes 24 hours for the egg to have a day’s worth of development. So when you are counting you say “1” 24 hours after you put it in. An easy way to check your counting is that the day of the week you put the egg in is the day of the week the 21 days are up. If you started them on a Tuesday the 21 days are up on a Tuesday. To show how critical the exact timing of lockdown is many people miss it by an entire day because of mis-counting and still get great hatches. It’s a good question, it shows you are paying attention and thinking, but if you are off a few hours it really won’t affect your hatch.

Good luck!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I forgot to mention to not expect hatch at exactly 21 days either. There are a lot of different things that can cause eggs to hatch a couple of days early or late, either in the incubator or under a broody hen. The exact timing is going to be something else that is not all that precise. Average heat is a big factor in timing, if the average temperature is a bit high they can be early, if it is a bit cool they can be late. Some other things that can change the time of the hatch are heredity, humidity, and just basic differences between eggs.

I’ve had some external pip a full three days early and still get a good hatch. Some people have had then be that late. That’s something else that can raise your anxiety levels, if you are expecting exactly 21 days and it doesn’t happen, you think you have done something wrong or you have a disaster, whether they are early or especially if they are late. Later hatches do get easier than the first but the anxiety never totally goes away.

A few years back I had one chick totally out of the egg two full days early. It took over a full 24 hours before I saw any signs from any of the others. Just before I went to bed I finally saw another egg pip. Within 12 hours of that pip another 16 chicks hatched. I don’t know why that one chick was so early but I do understand people get anxious about hatching.