chicks dying between day 18 & hatching

[AmyLynn2374]

Steve, your hygrometer may be off. Look up the instructions for calibrating a hygrometer. Then, next time around, drop the humidity even more. What's your typical humidity in the house? I keep my bator humidity around 30% until lock down. (may increase a bit after day 14 if the air cells are too big, but usually 30% does well for me until lock down.) Have you opened eggs to see what's going on inside after their due date? Are chicks wet? Dry? A lot of liquid in there? How big are your air cells? Do they internally pip? There's some great articles in the learning center under the title "Hatching 101". Read up on how to trouble shoot your hatching technique based on eggtopsy. If the chicks aren't as developed as they should be, it may be a temp issue.

He stated that they are fully developing but he's having quite a few pipping at hatch and dying.(In all three of his hatches.) When he eggtopsied he found there were some that appeared shrinkwrapped.

 

[JJSS89]

Not to be contrary to others but my highest hatching rates come when I am able to hold humidity around 45-50% and then I only go up 5-10% in lockdown. Once the first chick hatches the humidity will increase. I don't like big jumps because they are harder to maintain.

25% for days 1-18 sounds pretty low to me and 75% sounds high for lockdown. I don't even like being that high for quail. Sure the membrane is super soft but then drowning deaths increase.

 

[sdm111]

Lower the humidity between 1_18 search dry incubation more likely than not what you are experiencing is the chick is growing too big due to too high humidity during 1_18 and Cannot turn after pip and dies and if someone has experienced that the membrane does dry out even with high humidity during lockdown

 

[JJSS89]

Lower the humidity between 1_18 search dry incubation more likely than not what you are experiencing is the chick is growing too big due to too high humidity during 1_18 and Cannot turn after pip and dies and if someone has experienced that the membrane does dry out even with high humidity during lockdown

Growing too big from 25% humidity? Maybe if the hygrometer is way off.

I would really hesitate to say this is from too LOW of humidity

 

[sdm111]

If u were to fully read MY post u would see that I said they grow too big because of TOO HIGH humidity. But to each there own.

 

[sdm111]

I personally will believe what I see happening before I believe an electronic devise.

 

[JJSS89]

If u were to fully read MY post u would see that I said they grow too big because of TOO HIGH humidity. But to each there own.

I meant to say HIGH. Point was that if the 25% is an accurate number then I can't feature it being too high.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Not to be contrary to others but my highest hatching rates come when I am able to hold humidity around 45-50% and then I only go up 5-10% in lockdown. Once the first chick hatches the humidity will increase. I don't like big jumps because they are harder to maintain.

25% for days 1-18 sounds pretty low to me and 75% sounds high for lockdown. I don't even like being that high for quail. Sure the membrane is super soft but then drowning deaths increase.

I disagree. For one, plenty of us do and have better hatches by using the dry method, which can range between 25-50% the first 17 days. 75% at lockdown/hatch is not going to drown the chicks if the egg has lost the proper amount of moisture during incubation. They are not going to fill back up. If you are running a bator with the least recommended amount of humidity it leaves you no leeway if you do need to open the bator and highers the chances of shrinl wrapping the eggs. At 75+ my chicks were able to hatch with no assistance (except one very malepositioned chick), no stickiness and active within minutes of hatch.

 

[JJSS89]

I disagree. For one, plenty of us do and have better hatches by using the dry method, which can range between 25-50% the first 17 days. 75% at lockdown/hatch is not going to drown the chicks if the egg has lost the proper amount of moisture during incubation. They are not going to fill back up. If you are running a bator with the least recommended amount of humidity it leaves you no leeway if you do need to open the bator and highers the chances of shrinl wrapping the eggs. At 75+ my chicks were able to hatch with no assistance (except one very malepositioned chick), no stickiness and active within minutes of hatch.

Sounds like that works for you. You'll notice that I wrote from a standpoint of "what works for me".

A lot of this has to do with your environment, altitude, ambient humidity, breed of chicken etc. There are methods that simply are not beneficial for me that seem to work in other parts of the country.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

.......... and if someone has experienced that the membrane does dry out even with high humidity during lockdown

Yep. Even with high humidity during lockdown it doesn't take long for a wet chick to dry after hatching, so you can also figure that it doesn't take long for the membrane to dry out and shrinkwrap the chick after they pip.
In my experience if a chick pips but doesn't hatch within 24 hours the membrane dries out and he shrinkwraps and those are the ones I have to "help."

I incubate dry and sometimes I forget to lockdown and the chicks hatch when the humidity is low as 20-40% but they don't automatically shrinkwrap, they hatch normally as long as they pip & zip quickly. Of course when I hear chicks cheeping in the bator I say oh crap and hustle to shut the turner racks off and add water a.s.a.p.

Even on hatches when the temp & humidity is just as perfect as it can be I still get a few dead chicks in the shell. I chalk it up to simply being weak or under developed chicks that lacked the strength to bust out the shell.
Not all eggs are created equal; some have tissue paper thin membranes while others have membranes as tough as leather. One of my hens lays an egg with such a tough membrane that I can break the shell in a million pieces on the edge of the skillet but the membrane won't break. I imagine a chick would have a tough time getting out of that egg so I don't bother hatching hers.