Babies on the way! I hope!

lkgrissom1

Hatching
6 Years
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Apr 3, 2013
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I am in a bit of a panic! I am hatching eggs in my classroom with the LG incubator and have had great success in years past. The reason for my panic is this; I was home with a sick child the past two days. Which happens to be two of the last three days before hatching. As a result, I didn't get the eggs out of the turner until 1 day before hatch! Has this happened to anyone else before? Did i just mess up my entire incubation process? Will my babies be able to get out of their shells? Is there something I should do? Please help!
 
I don't think you "messed" them up. I've had chicks pip while in the turner, they came out fine. Did you increase humidity?
 
Yes, Bill, I did increase the humidity. However, sadly, I'm afraid it might not have been enough. (I have trouble getting the humidity right every time I incubate.). At day 14 I candled the eggs and found movement in 30 eggs. I only had 13 chicks survive this hatching. So you think this was due more to humidity issues than not getting out of the turner in time?
 
Your poor hatch rate has/had nothing to do with not getting the eggs out of the turner, I'm sure of that. Chicks will hatch in a turner, I've had it happen. The biggest issue with hatching seem to be temperature & humidity. Mostly that it seems to be hard for some individuals to control those two close enough to get chicks to hatch successfully. Temperature & humidity are the two most important factors. I's important that temperature is exact. It can vary 99-101 but anything above or below that for any length of time is detrimental to growing embryo. The closer one can hold temperature to 99.5 (forced air) the better (Incubation temperature is different for still air incubators - use incubator manufacturers recommendations)

Humidity is something that I just as important, but determining what humidity to use depends on a whole lot of factors. The only thing I can recommend is to start with what ever you have according to incubator manufactures recommendations & then watch the air cell using a chart that shows what the air cell should look like at the various stages throughout incubation.

I don't mean to lecture here, but I simply don't answer post that start with "it's day 24 & eggs are piped" I have hatched eggs for a long time & know what that type of post means. Not only is the person who has been waiting for those eggs to hatch going to be disappointed or heart broken , but there is a good chance the chicks are going to have any number of problems & will likely die.

The only way I know of to prevent that is to make sure your thermometer, hygrometer are calibrated, your incubator runs at 99.5 or (I think 102 at top of egg for still air) & you check to make sure the air cell is growing per the charts.
 

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