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Thanks Penturner
I agree here on this post also, and as far as the CO2 levels in the egg from the chicks initial breathing of the air cell contents causes the initial spasms for pipping of the egg but if you had to have enough CO2 in the incubator air for the chicks to continue writheing with spasms to zip and break out of the egg and to also cause abdomen contractions to draw in the yolk sack, then the chicks that hatch out would surely die of asphyxiation.
My instructions on my incubator Little Giant 9200 desticntly says: Step 1, when you have 3 days remaining until hatch, stop turning eggs, or if an auto turner remove it from the incubator and place the eggs on the wire screen.
Step 2, remove both red plugs from the top of the incubator to increase ventilation. Step 3, increase humidity. Step 4, do not open incubator except to remove chicks. Chicks can be removed from the incubator when they are completely dry. Some chicks may hatch late, so continue to run the incubator for a few extra days beyond the normal hatch period.
So that tells me right there that with both plugs open you would want oxygen in the incubator instead of carbon dioxide so the hatched chicks can breathe and not smother.
With that being said now it mostly goes back to wrong turning and wrong humidity levels being of the utmost importance. Surely if you've made it this far with the hatch then the temps. have got to be pretty close to right or you would have already had catastrophic results by this point of the hatch. I think the temps are a little on the forgiving side as long as they're kept in a normal range form 99.5* to 102.75* ish range, with the lower temps for forced air and the higher temps for still air incubation. The average temperature of a hen is 105* to 107* and I'm pretty sure there's not much CO2 under a broody hen as she's pretty much out there in the wide open with nothing to make CO2 but her breath.
Here's some info on troublshooting hatch chart out of Raising Poultry the Modern Way.
Dead Germs: Embryos dying from day 12-18, 1. Wrong turning. 2.
Lack of ventilation.
Remedies: 1. Close temp. regulation. 2.
Plenty of fresh air in incubator room and good ventilation of machines. 3. Feed yellow corn, milk, alfalfa meal, and fish oil.
Chicks fully formed, but dead without pipping: 1. Improper turning. 2. Heredity. 3. Wrong temperature.
Remedies: 1. Turn eggs 4 times daily. 2. Select for high hatchability. 3. Watch incubator temp.
Eggs pipped, chick dead in shell. 1. Low average humidty. 2. Low average temp. 3. Excessive high temp. for a short period.
Remedies: 1. Keep wet bulb temp. from 85* to 90* F. 2. Maintain proper temp. throughout hatch. 3. Guard against temp. surge.
Sticky chicks, shell sticking to chicks. 1. Eggs dried down too much. 2. Low humidity at hatch time.
Remedies: 1. Carry wet bulb temp. at 85* F. between hatches. 2. Increase wet bulb reading to 88* to 90* when eggs start pipping.
This is the info I go by and nowhere in the whole book is there anywhere a mention of needing the incubator to have cabon dioxide in it. Seems theres a lot about getting it out and having oxygen in there to me.
Happy hatching everybody,
catdaddy
