"Shrink wrap" vs. "Sticky chick"?

[rebelcowboysnb]

Yep they can an do.

 

[ChestnutRidge]

Quote:
Sorry!

I read what you said again just after posting and understood it better. I thought I caught it before anyone saw, but you were too quick for me!

Anyway, I appreciate both answers!

Updated summary:

Shrink wrapped: before pipping, both inner and out membranes dry tight around the chick; caused by too little humidity throughout incubation
Sticky chick: after pipping, the liquids dry becoming glue-like followed by concrete-like; caused by too little humidity during lockdown
Wet sticky or Swollen: the chick is swollen with water or simply very wet and sticky; caused by too high humidity throughout incubation
Drowning: the whitish outer membrane is dry while the clearish inner membrane is wet, binding the chick; also caused by too high humidity thoughout incubation
Chicks experiencing more than one of the extreme conditions can exhibit multiple issues. These same issues can also occur during natural incubation, under a brooding hen.

 

[they'reHISchickens]

I'm on our fourth setting in a fan LG this spring and I have been experimenting. Also.. I am in PA and use Pellet stove heat and a homemade cooler hatcher.
My observations: I really like dry incubation ( adding no water days 1-18) but it can be too dry. Dry incubation with low household humidity gave me shrinkwrapped chicks prior to pipping. Too low humidity to me was under 20%.
Regular dry humidity to me is 25-35% and closer to the upper 20s. Now when it gets lower than 25 , i "let the hen walk thru rain" or .. add some water to bring it up to 30+. Then I let it go for a while down to 25 or so.
Lockdown is in the hatcher at 65-70. I found that adding more ventilation kept the condensation on the window down and still held the 65% humidity. I could regulate humidity easily by manipulating hole covers.
This incubation is really an art and science unless you have a sophisticated incubator that someone has figured everything out. I think a lot is luck of location location location, because that would affect temp and humidity throughout the 3 weeks.
So what works for me may not work for you.
The bad part is having to set so much to figure it all out. What do we do with all these chicks!!?!!?!?!?
And.. this last batch is going under 3 broodies at 14 days Let's see how they manage.

 

[ChestnutRidge]

they'reHISchickens :

Too low humidity to me was under 20%. Regular dry humidity to me is 25-35% and closer to the upper 20s. Now when it gets lower than 25 , i "let the hen walk thru rain" or .. add some water to bring it up to 30+. Then I let it go for a while down to 25 or so. Lockdown is in the hatcher at 65-70. I found that adding more ventilation kept the condensation on the window down and still held the 65% humidity.

Your numbers are actually what I decided upon as well. I've only had one hatch, and from reading, I had decided to aim for 35% incubation humidity and 65% lockdown humidity.

Well, being that it was my first time, I had a cheap hygrometer ($3 thermometer/hygrometer from TSC). Turns out that 50% humidity on the cheap thermometer was 30% on the digital, precalibrated hygrometer I bought (Caliber III, a cigar box hygrometer), so I had been very dry during my first week when I thought I was at 35%. I tried to compensate during week two, and my humidity was still never much higher than actual 40%. Then, I planned to hatch in an LG, but I couldn't get the temperature stable and ended up hatching in my Genesis. I hadn't practiced lockdown in the Genesis, so I ended up with 80% humidity instead of 65%. *Sigh.* Of my 15 developed eggs that went into lockdown (I didn't wait to see movement in all of them, just general development), 8 hatched unassisted, 3 got stuck with high lockdown humidity and were assisted, and 4 did not hatch. I bet that if I had had the guts to look inside the unpipped eggs, I would have seen shrinkwrapping.

So, to avoid both shrinkwrapping and sticky chicks, I am redoubling my efforts to incubate at 35% and hatch at 65%, now armed with a better hygrometer and an ounce more experience. I'll be setting my second batch of eggs this weekend, so we'll see how it goes!

Good luck with your hatches and your broodies, they'reHISchickens!​

 

[ChestnutRidge]

Hmm. I just thought of something we hadn't covered.

Many people talk about shrinkwrapping chicks by opening the incubator while chicks have pipped from the sudden drop in humidity. Looking at Laree's pictures in Post #3, this last-minute issue isn't true shrinkwrapping.

What exactly happens when humidity drops suddenly during lockdown when chicks are pipped, and what should it be called?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I though this was more of a stick to the membrane issue, rather than the membrane actually shrinking. The sticky chick.

 

[emjay]

my last hatch , which ended two days ago, I had several sticky chicks. oh my word. ! What a chore that was dealing with those chicks. I had to do an emergency intervention with the eggs, as after 12+ hours and no progression from where they were. They were definitely sticky glued , took a lot of damp cloths, steamy atmosphere to clean them off. One was so glued, its head was glued to its neck, it never ever would have hatched on its own, as it never would have been able to unfold.
I had to use scissors to cut its fluff from the neck area, to detach the head.
Never do I want to deal with that again.

It was a busy night. Had to hatch out 8 eggs, 4 are okay, still having a hard time to fluff out completely, will they ever, they look so tiny compared to the perfect babies. I had to wash them, dry them and try to fluff them.

4 of them are in booties, 2 with only 1 bad foot, the other two with bad feet. Only one of those was really bad, the others, was basically a bent backward toe.
So, everyone came out of it not too bad.

36 babies out of 42 eggs

 

[ChestnutRidge]

Quote:
My goodness - 8 stuck chicks are a lot of work. Sticky chicks are so stressful. I had a few for the Easter hatch. One ended up being a runt (a sweet little runt, though), but the other two were normal sized. All ended up alright, but it made the whole day feel like an emergency. It almost disuaded me from incubating eggs again. Almost.

 

[ChestnutRidge]

I would like to figure out the opened-the-incubator-during-hatch-"shrinkwrap" issue. Does it look like the shrinkwrap in Laree's picture, or is it something different?

Quote:

 

[emjay]

Quote:
My goodness - 8 stuck chicks are a lot of work. Sticky chicks are so stressful. I had a few for the Easter hatch. One ended up being a runt (a sweet little runt, though), but the other two were normal sized. All ended up alright, but it made the whole day feel like an emergency. It almost disuaded me from incubating eggs again. Almost.

Yep, alot of work !! Did it disuade me. YES. until next year that is , hahahahaha. I am leaving the other babies to the broody's . I currently have 3 chicken broodys, (ones eggs due today) !! plus 2 mama duck broodys.