I tried a dry hatch last weekend, though did not use a hygrometer and outside humidity has been sky high, so do not know what the hatcher was actually running at. I also had no DC eggs in there. However, after a 6 hour power outage resulting from the storm we had here Friday night, with no attempt on my part to keep the eggs warm, all but two eggs hatched One had pipped at the wrong end and probably drowned. I get my best results by hatching with the eggs standing on their pointy ends rather than laying naturally, but those pipping at the wrong end sometimes don't make it either way. I'm not sure if they needed it or not, but had three eggs that had stalled [from the whites under my now only DC cockerel of breeding age] that I helped zip.
"Stalled" is not really the right word. They had pipped and not yet attempted to zip, possibly slow because of the power outage. I had the last of my DC eggs of this year waiting to go in, so a few hours after the end of the 21st day I zipped them, and set them back in. They were really not quite ready; no blood in the outer membrane, yolk absorbed, but still puffy where they had been attached to the yolk when they climbed out of the half shell.. Some here probably have seen it and know a term for it; it looks a little like a prolapsed hen, and chicks that hatched a bit early sometimes show it. They sometimes seem to get infection entering there and die at around one week, so don't know if these will make it or not. I did disinfect them with an Oxine solution and applied a medicated salve before moving them to the brooder. Last week another hatched on its own that way and never grew, finally needing culled last night. Some have made it in the past. I have not tried disinfecting their bottoms before.
