What Went Wrong? *Eggtopsy* *Graphic*

[SDHeritage]

I'm in SD and we run them at 49 to 52 percent for the whole hatch. I also have a wet bulb to to verify that the relative humidity is on track.

 

[coloradogal]

I'm in SD and we run them at 49 to 52 percent for the whole hatch. I also have a wet bulb to to verify that the relative humidity is on track.

I'm in Colorado and generally don't worry about humidity unless it gets under 20 (settles around 40%ish- sometimes higher sometimes lower). During lockdown, I try to never go above 65.

I've never had a good hatch going from lower elevation to almost 7000. We just dont have enough oxygen up here even with all the vents open.

I've tried doing a wet incubation for shipped eggs with little luck.

 

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

I'm in Colorado and generally don't worry about humidity unless it gets under 20 (settles around 40%ish- sometimes higher sometimes lower).  During lockdown, I try to never go above 65.  

I've never had a good hatch going from lower elevation to almost 7000.  We just dont have enough oxygen up here even with all the vents open.

I've tried doing a wet incubation for shipped eggs with little luck.

I tried to mitigate altitude issues by buying from a location at altitude. The eggs came from Montana at 4k ft but I guess it still wasn't good enough. :/

 

[cbnovick]

Ok, I ordered hatching eggs and ended up with a 5/22 hatch.
Two of the chicks that hatched have partially absorbed yoke sacs. One is fiesty and recovering the other is very droopy and I am trying to work with it.

I followed hatching advise for at altitude hatching of shipped eggs (thats where I got my goals for humidity and keeping both vent plugs open)

Eggs arrived and rested 18 hours
Into the incubator with the turner off for 7 or 8 days, then turned on the turner
Temp was at 99.5 +/- 0.2 and stayed steady.
Targeted 55% humidity and was able to keep it between 50-55% for the first 18 days. Had a drop on day 12, down to 32% overnight
Increased humidity to target 65% for lockdown. Spiked to 75% on the evening of the 21st. I had aid a chick in trouble so I refilled the wells while I was at it and some spilled causing the spike.
*Humidity targets were taken from some high altitude hatching advise pages including one by a local breeder I know

I candled on days
5 (verify air cell stability before turning on the turner)
7(air cell stability again)
10 (looking for development, tossing bloodrings)
14 (final toss of any obviously bad eggs)
16 (outlining air cells to determine who would go into a carton. There were enough funky ones that I just put everyone into cartons)

Stopped turning the evening of day 17, again to help the aircells and chick alignment given advise from shipped egg experts.

I am by no means an expert at candling and chose to error on the side of caution and include possibly bad eggs rather than risk tossing good eggs that just looked off. 19 eggs went into lockdown, 5 eggs that went into lockdown were questionable, 5 hatched, the rest I tested this afternoon and found were dead. 2 of the 5 that hatched had protruding yoke sacs, one not so badly but it was the last to hatch and is sluggish. The other had a worse sac but has been very lively.

I will post pics in the next post; for some reason my internet freezes when loading pics to BYC sometimes and I don't want to loose the details again.

I need to know if there is anything anyone can pick out as the likely cause of demise so I can fix it for the next batch. I really don't want to have this happen again...

Again, Warning, EGGTOPSY PICS follow...

HI. My feeling is that waiting until day 8 is too long without regular rotation of the eggs...I have had success waiting about 1-2 days tops to start turning eggs. I like my humidity a bit lower during first 18 days...around 35% ...it will dip to 20-25% and then I add a bit of water to get it to 35-40%. I am not at high altitude...I have had eggs from Montana and Oregon and Washington shipped here to AZ and have had a decent hatch rate thus far...maybe going from higher altitude to lower is easier on eggs than going to even higher altitude?? I would think that local eggs would give you better odds. Keeping my fingers crossed for the 2 strugglers (-;

 

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

HI. My feeling is that waiting until day 8 is too long without regular rotation of the eggs...I have had success waiting about 1-2 days tops to start turning eggs. I like my humidity a bit lower during first 18 days...around 35% ...it will dip to 20-25% and then I add a bit of water to get it to 35-40%. I am not at high altitude...I have had eggs from Montana and Oregon and Washington shipped here to AZ and have had a decent hatch rate thus far...maybe going from higher altitude to lower is easier on eggs than going to even higher altitude?? I would think that local eggs would give you better odds. Keeping my fingers crossed for the 2 strugglers (-;

Going from high to low is no problem but low to high the embryos have issues getting enough oxygen so they say to up humidity and leave both plugs out. One site even recommended injecting oxygen straight into the incubator but the fire warning attached made me nervous. :/

I will be sticking to local eggs for a while and will try dry incubation with the next batch. That at least will limit the variables a bit.

 

[SilkieSensation]

I see VERY wet chicks in those pix. That tells me humidity was way high during incubation & probably during hatch as well. They didn't lose enough moisture & drowned in the shell. Try running a dry hatch with local eggs & see if they do better. As for the backward chicks that can also be from humidity too high. Too much water allows the chicks to get very fat & they can't turn to get into hatch position. Backward chicks can also be caused by too much water loss causing the membrane to tighten down too much & trap the baby before it can turn, but pretty sure that isn't the case here with as much liquid as I see leaking from those eggs. The turner also needs to be on by day 3-5 to keep the embryos from sticking to the membranes. That can also keep them from turning properly as well.

 

[gina4animals]

I am in CO also at 7500 ft. I used local eggs from my own hens. Started with 42, and discarded 14 on day 14 due to not fertile. Most of the others looked good when candled. I have a Little Giant and ran it at 100degrees F, and at 40-45% humidity since the last time I tried with the dry incubation method only one hatched. SO, at lock down on day 18 I increased humidity to about 65-70% and nothing ever hatched. Now I am thinking they did not get enough air/oxygen as it was so humid and I didn't realize I was supposed to make sure to keep ventilation open. ALTHOUGH they have a big slit where air comes in/out from where the electric cord comes out from the inside of the bator.
Now they were due to hatch on Feb 28, and it is March 3. I finally gave up today and turned the bator off. I am about to do an "eggtopsy" but am not looking forward to it.
I will let you know what I see - but am not looking forward to it.....I guess in the name of research and education and prevention anything is possible!

 

[gina4animals]

UPDATE
I opened one and it looked like it died awhile ago - like halfway through. I am such a weenie I can't bring myself to open any more. It is really hard to do this at this altitude, I never had any problems when I lived at sea level...

 

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

UPDATE
I opened one and it looked like it died awhile ago - like halfway through. I am such a weenie I can't bring myself to open any more. It is really hard to do this at this altitude, I never had any problems when I lived at sea level...

I did a run with local eggs, dry hatch at 40% humidity. I upped it to 65% at hatch. 7 chicks hatched of the 21 in lockdown. I discovered I have uneven humidity in the incubator which influenced the hatch. I eggtopsied 5. 4 were fully developed and two of those had internal pips. The other looked like it quit around day 18.

Dd you have both plugs in? I had both of mine out for the whole hatch. Latest recommendations I have found are to keep at least one plug in for the first 10 days then pull them.

good luck on the next run.

 

[roxyq]

hi all...
need some help... well kinda a lot of help.
I am on my very first batch of bantam chick,,, I had 4 beige & 4 blue, all were doing very.. well up until last night..
We had a temp spike of 120 just after id put them into lockdown.... i soooo gutted!
The temp spike lasted around an hour before i checked it,,,, I have candled them today... I know i should'nt have done so really but I had to. I can only see movement in 2 eggs.......is it time to cry?
roxy