Chicks died while hatching. What happened?

[SIMZ]

I had 6 EE/Marans mixed and 6 Black Copper Marans hatching. All 6 mixes hatched just fine, along with one BCM. I went to bed with 4 hatching marans eggs (1/4 to 1/2 zipped). They were still the same the next morning. When I checked them all but one of them were dead. I've never had that happen before. I helped the living one a bit and he hatched, but his neck was bent underneath him and he's still having some problems 12 hours later.

The only time I've had chicks die like this is an occassional "shrink wrapped" chick. These guys were not at all dry. They were not bloody and the yolks were entirely absorbed.

Any ideas? They were very dark and round eggs. Is it possible that they were upside down in the turner for part of the incubation. Could that have caused something like this?

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you open this link you can find different things that might cause that. You’ll be able to match the cause and results better than I can since you are looking at them, but there are still several different things that might cause that.

http://msucares.com/poultry/reproductions/trouble.html

If the eggs were upside down, I’d expect the chick to not be able to external pip. It would probably die when it could not internal pip properly. But incubating them upside down does usually result in dead chicks.

One thing I’d look at is fresh air, especially in a still air type incubator. The chicks need to breathe fresh air. If the air inside gets stale, they can suffocate. That’s just a wild guess. Good luck on figuring it out.

 

[SIMZ]

Thank you for the great article!

I'm just not sure, even from that. I'd think it had something to do with the parent stock, but one of the Marans hatched fine, and all the chicks had the same father. It just seemed to affect the later hatchers - and even the late hatcher that was still alive still can't walk and has a funny neck.

Some were already chirping when I got them into lockdown. It's always possible that my dates were off, but I'm pretty sure they hatched at least a day early. Therefore, they were definitely still turning until the last day before hatch. I don't know........ I also think the humidity was a bit high at hatch, too.