22 hours since pip no progress

[EggSighted4Life]

If you have had any periods of unstable humidity during incubation, it may lead to a delayed hatch.

I'm not sure exactly what this means... so I will share my humidity variances...

EVERY TIME, I add water my humidity hits 52% and slowly creeps back to where I want it, 40-45%. It continues to dry out where it runs from a few hours to a whole day around 37%. Then I refill and it starts all over again... (this might be considered "unstable" humidity).

My chicks ALL hatch on day 21 with 80-100% hatch rate and usually within 12 hours of each other.

Temp fluctuation, I can see possible delaying hatch... but can you please explain to me how humidity would effect timing please? I like to know the WHY of things! So I don't mean to argue, just hopefully learn something or share the information I have with MY experience. Thank you

 

[Cyprus]

I do not personally have experience incubating or hatching, but my understanding is that too high or low humidity for a few days at a time could toughen the membrane and/or cause hatching to take longer.

This is my understanding of why humidity affects hatching:

If the incubation humidity has been too high the egg will have lost too little moisture and the chick
will be rather large. In this case the air space will be too small, the chick’s respiration will be affected and the young bird will have difficulty breaking out of the shell because of the lack of space. Commonly with excessive incubation humidity the chicks will die having broken through the shell in one place (‘pipped’) either through weakness because of the lack of air to breathe in the shell or because of lack of space to turn and cut around the shell with their bill.
Low incubation humidity levels lead to small chicks with large air spaces by the time the hatch is due. These chicks will tend to be weak and may also die just before, during or just after hatching.
It should be noted that in general that a slightly lower humidity level than optimum is likely to be less disastrous than a slightly higher than ideal level.

 

[Skipper81]

Hatched beautiful little EE sex link mix and super strong too thank you guys so much I was getting anxious.
So it was 27 hours from external pip to unzip. This is in my homemade incubator where temps can't fluctuate the way it is setup.
Humidity can't fluctuate either
Unless I take lid if for like a full minute. BYC ROCKS

 

[Cyprus]

Hatched beautiful little EE sex link mix and super strong too

Pictures, please?

 

[Skipper81]

 

[Skipper81]

 

[Cyprus]

OMG it's adorable! Congrats on the new fluffbutt
P.S your incubator is really nice

 

[Skipper81]

Thank you it has 5 gallons of water at room temp underneath the eggs so there's not spikes or drops. Temp takes hours to change. I just bought an incubator from tractor supply yesterday and as soon as I open it the temp drops like 10 degrees so I'm going to stick with my homemade setup.