Are all my chicks dead?

[Dords]

We had to go out of town and the SUV broke down on the way home, so we were gone for over 24 hours.

There was a power cut whilst we were away and I returned home to find the alarm going on the incubator - the temp was 26C and no humidity to speak of. I've no way of telling how long this situation lasted.

They were at day 14.

I have water candled them today - three float, but no movements, the rest all sit pointed end down on the bottom of the container.

Should there be movement at day 14?

Question is.. do I leave them a few more days or assume they all died and start again?

Any help gratefully received.

Cheers

 

[Fishkeeper]

Definitely leave them and give them some more time. Water candling isn't always accurate, and there's a chance they're still alive.

 

[Dords]

Thanks Fishkeeper. Actually, I water candled my last batch and it was 100% accurate. One clear, 1 dead embryo and one malpositioned chick which went to full term, so 5 out of 8 heathly chicks. However, they were all 1-4 days overdue. (The last one hatched out on day 25)! I nearly discarded it, but decided to give it one more day.

This batch is only up to 15th day now, so I'll leave them for another couple of days. I only water candled them because of the power cut. It was a pretty traumatic event for them, so fingers crossed. All but three of the eggs sat pointed end down on the bottom of the bowl, so I'm not sure if this means they are dead.

 

[Old McRonald]

I would let them be for now at least, you just never know what they can make it through so remain patient! I just had a chick hatch last Thursday that survived a temperature spike of 111F, and some duck eggs are due to hatch tomorrow, I still had movement in 2 of them a few days ago.

 

[NaturalBeautyFarm]

There is always humidity in the air and a lot of people incubate without adding water to incubator until lockdown. Eggs also give off humidity as they develop, so in an incubator they help each other stabilize. So I would not worry about that.

Did you know that developing eggs can be suspended(aka incubation stopped for a few days and then resumed) during incubation? There is documented research on it and I did it personally when I needed chicks to hatch out at the same time. Less than 36hrs is the optimal window, but I sometimes suspended the eggs for 72 hours with only a 1% loss. Just plan on a few more days before hatching.

It sounds like your thermometers need to be calibrated.

 

[Dords]

Thank you so much for the reassurance NaturalBeautyFarm. It was a little more complicated than just the power cut. The little hygrometer fell down and stopped the egg tray from moving sideways. In it's efforts to move the tray, (the moving wheel is in the lid), the lid became dislodged slightly, leaving the incubator slightly open. Then to top it off we had the power outage. The alarm was sounding when we got home. Not sure how long it had been like that, but we were away for about 26 -27 hours, max.

We can only wait it our and see if any damage to the eggs has been done.

I didn't know you can suspend incubation - very interesting!

 

[Dords]

Hi folks. Good news....

I have at least 4 of the 10 eggs set that are cheeping and have pipped, one has hatched already.

One however, has pipped at the wrong end and made a small hole in the shell, though the membrane appears intact - not sure whether to do anything? It is cheeping loudly. They are at 23rd day of incubation.

Any advice gratefully received - I don't want the chick to suffocate, but am reluctant to touch the membrane in case I do some damage. Can chicks hatch from the wrong end?

 

[Fishkeeper]

I think if it's externally pipped, it should be all right. Generally the issue with wrong-end pipping is that they can't access and pip into the air sac to breathe. But if it's gone to the outside, there's all the oxygen they need out there. I guess it had enough energy to just go straight to an external pip- or maybe the air sac is at the wrong end? Might be worth a gentle candling.

 

[Dords]

Thanks Fishkeeper. I actually assisted this chick this morning and it is doing fine. There was no bleeding of the membrane and the yolk sac was absorbed - it just seemed to be unable to "zip" the shell. It had been in that position for nearly three days and wasn't going anywhere fast. I'm so happy it survived the trauma.