All my chicks died!!!

[lilifluff]

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to this and have been browsing these forums for a while now, I would love to get some opinions and views from you guys.

This has been my very first batch!! I read up on the topic before setting up the incubator, turned them every couple of hours(except over night).
I got 12 chicken eggs in the post, 4 seemed well when I candled them on day 18 (I had candled them before then). The egg babies were due this Wednesday just gone. But only started to show signs of hatching this morning, but when I got back from work one had died after only pipping a little out of the shell. I candled the others and two had pipped internally but weren't making any sounds or movement. I decided to open them a little as I was concerned, they were dead too! The last looked like it had died sometime before.

I'm not sure what went wrong, can any one shed any light on the matter for me? I was really looking forward to the little guys and now i'm really sad and upset. What did I possibly do wrong?

Any help and advice would be great, so that I can hopefully avoid this happening again . Thanks

 

[Poultry parent]

did the temp fluctuate? was the humidity high enough? if the humidity isn't high enough the membrane will get stuck to the chicks nose and suffocate it.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to this and have been browsing these forums for a while now, I would love to get some opinions and views from you guys.

This has been my very first batch!! I read up on the topic before setting up the incubator, turned them every couple of hours(except over night).
I got 12 chicken eggs in the post, 4 seemed well when I candled them on day 18 (I had candled them before then). The egg babies were due this Wednesday just gone. But only started to show signs of hatching this morning, but when I got back from work one had died after only pipping a little out of the shell. I candled the others and two had pipped internally but weren't making any sounds or movement. I decided to open them a little as I was concerned, they were dead too! The last looked like it had died sometime before.

I'm not sure what went wrong, can any one shed any light on the matter for me? I was really looking forward to the little guys and now i'm really sad and upset. What did I possibly do wrong?

Any help and advice would be great, so that I can hopefully avoid this happening again . Thanks

To begin with shipped eggs have a high mortality rate even the ones that make it to lockdown. With that being said lets look at your incubation process and see what we can find to help you. It sounds like they started hatching late. That points to temps. What kind of incubator are you using, is it still air or forced air and what temps are you incubating at? Do you have your own thermometers/hygrometers in the incubator? (That are checked and accurate?) Next, humidity. What was your humidity for the first 17 days and then for lockdown. Do you check your air cells at all for growth?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

And:

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Oh, when you opened them, did you open them far enough to be able to tell if there was excess moisture, very wet chicks or fluid left in the shell?

 

[lilifluff]

Hi all,
I had an issue with the incubator around 14 days in, for some reason it got rather hot and went to 40 degrees Celsius! I had the humidity at around 20% for the first 18 days. I then raised it to between 80 - 90% after that. The two that had internally pipped were rather wet and had a lot of fluid in with them. The one that had breeched the shell looked normal. what does the excessive fluid mean?

 

[lilifluff]

Oh It was a still air incubator, it isn't branded one I'm afraid just a generic one. It had a in built thermostat and humidity gage. Although this had this built in I had another one inside the machine too, I didn't quite trust the machine.

 

[Poultry parent]

that is a little high, how long was it at that temp?

 

[lilifluff]

No more than a few hours, I noticed they felt a little hotter when I was turning them. So I placed my extra thermometer into the bator.

 

[lilifluff]

It was for only a few hours, I noticed the eggs were a little hotter than usual when I went to turn them. So I stuck my other thermostat into the incubator to check.