day 14, first incubation I've done, AIR CELL PROBLEMS!! Please help!!

[chickienewbie88]

I have 4 silkie and 4 bantam mix eggs in my forced air incubator.. Yesterday was day 14 and I think Ive royally messed up.. i had read, before i started, that I need approx. 50% humidity for the first 18 days, then cranked up to 60-70% after lockdown on day 18. I candled and marked my air cells on day 7, everything seemed okay.. Then yesterday i checked again and have major problems.. the bantam mix eggs are not losing water, air cells were VERY slightly bigger and the chicks look HUGE inside. The silkie eggs have small chicks inside and the air cells seem to be growing okay. So what do i do now?! Obviously i need to dry out the bantams but im afraid of too much water loss in the silkies if i do so.. Any ideas?! Please help me!!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I have 4 silkie and 4 bantam mix eggs in my forced air incubator.. Yesterday was day 14 and I think Ive royally messed up.. i had read, before i started, that I need approx. 50% humidity for the first 18 days, then cranked up to 60-70% after lockdown on day 18. I candled and marked my air cells on day 7, everything seemed okay.. Then yesterday i checked again and have major problems.. the bantam mix eggs are not losing water, air cells were VERY slightly bigger and the chicks look HUGE inside. The silkie eggs have small chicks inside and the air cells seem to be growing okay. So what do i do now?! Obviously i need to dry out the bantams but im afraid of too much water loss in the silkies if i do so.. Any ideas?! Please help me!!

Drop the humidity, run dry for a couple days and just keep an eye on all the air cells. In my opinion 50% is much to high for the first 17 days. This is the method I use: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity
I have been having great success doing it this way (considered the "dry"incubation method.) I had 36 eggs go into lockdown on Tuesday and hatched out 33 of them.

 

[chickienewbie88]

Thank you so much for the reply!! Yes, now that Ive joined here and done more research, i see FAR more people who do little to no humidity at first, then ramp up at the end, so I agree completely that i should have used that method to start. Do you think running dry will cause problems with my silkie eggs now, since theyre losing water pretty well already? Is there anything i can do to negate this? Also, since my bantam eggs' embryos look so big, do you think ill have problems with hatching?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Thank you so much for the reply!! Yes, now that Ive joined here and done more research, i see FAR more people who do little to no humidity at first, then ramp up at the end, so I agree completely that i should have used that method to start. Do you think running dry will cause problems with my silkie eggs now, since theyre losing water pretty well already? Is there anything i can do to negate this? Also, since my bantam eggs' embryos look so big, do you think ill have problems with hatching?

I'd just keep a close eye on the silkie eggs. Run dry (or around 30%) 24 hours and recheck them to make sure they are not loosing too much. As for the bantams, without really seeing them I can't judge. It is possible that if they have already grown too big that increasing the size of the air cell could have a higher probability of shrink wrapping them. Are you 100% sure the bantams air cells are on the small side?? I only ask because this hatch that I just finished had two banty's and I've never incubated banty's before and they kept looking small and I had to keep reminding myself to stop looking at just the air cell (because even when they are where they need to be they seems tiny) and look at the size in comparison to the rest of the egg.

 

[jfays]

Can I ask what you mean by marking the eggs air cells? I never heard about doing that. this is also my first hatch! I hope everything works out for you!

 

[chickienewbie88]

Can I ask what you mean by marking the eggs air cells? I never heard about doing that. this is also my first hatch! I hope everything works out for you!

When candling, i lightly mark the outline of the air cell with a pencil so i can track water loss throughout the incubation.. also supposed to give you an idea of where the chick will pip (usually the lowest dip of the air cell)

I'd just keep a close eye on the silkie eggs. Run dry (or around 30%) 24 hours and recheck them to make sure they are not loosing too much.  As for the bantams, without really seeing them I can't judge. It is possible that if they have already grown too big that increasing the size of the air cell could have a higher probability of shrink wrapping them. Are you 100% sure the bantams air cells are on the small side?? I only ask because this hatch that I just finished had two banty's and I've never incubated banty's before and they kept looking small and I had to keep reminding myself to stop looking at just the air cell (because even when they are where they need to be they seems tiny) and look at the size in comparison to the rest of the egg.

Ill try to get a picture for you tonight when I check. And i was told theyre bantams.. its possible theyre not.. the egg size is about the same size as the silkies but are much heavier, maybe 3x heavier. I would say the embryo is approximately 75% of the size of the egg and today makes day 15 (when i candelled, the entire bottom 75% was too dark to see through, and i can barely make out veins near the air cell, embryos were moving though). The air cell doesnt have any dip to one size of the other and is maybe 1/4 of an inch from the top of the egg, whereas the silkies are closer to 1/2 inch with a pronounced dip on one side and the embryos are still small (maybe 25% the size of the egg).

 

[AmyLynn2374]

When candling, i lightly mark the outline of the air cell with a pencil so i can track water loss throughout the incubation.. also supposed to give you an idea of where the chick will pip (usually the lowest dip of the air cell)
Ill try to get a picture for you tonight when I check. And i was told theyre bantams.. its possible theyre not.. the egg size is about the same size as the silkies but are much heavier, maybe 3x heavier. I would say the embryo is approximately 75% of the size of the egg and today makes day 15 (when i candelled, the entire bottom 75% was too dark to see through, and i can barely make out veins near the air cell, embryos were moving though). The air cell doesnt have any dip to one size of the other and is maybe 1/4 of an inch from the top of the egg, whereas the silkies are closer to 1/2 inch with a pronounced dip on one side and the embryos are still small (maybe 25% the size of the egg).

If you have hot/cool spots in the bator and you'll also see the eggs in the warmer spots developing quicker than those in the cooler spots, so keep that in mind. When I went into lockdown, I noted one egg especially looked a bit behind the rest still, even though I tried to rotate the ones that looked looked slower and made a note that I wouldn't be surpprised if that one didn't hatch. My chicks hatched day 19/20 and that one egg was left, (with three I knew were goners) I was going to eggtopsie it w/the others but when I candled it had internally pipped, so I said, ok, I'll give it another 24 hours and see if it actually externally pips. It actually hatched on day 21....lol Even with a fan forced air incubator I have those cooler areas, that will cause slower developement in chicks.

 

[calichicken]

If you have hot/cool spots in the bator and you'll also see the eggs in the warmer spots developing quicker than those in the cooler spots, so keep that in mind. When I went into lockdown, I noted one egg especially looked a bit behind the rest still, even though I tried to rotate the ones that looked looked slower and made a note that I wouldn't be surpprised if that one didn't hatch. My chicks hatched day 19/20 and that one egg was left, (with three I knew were goners) I was going to eggtopsie it w/the others but when I candled it had internally pipped, so I said, ok, I'll give it another 24 hours and see if it actually externally pips. It actually hatched on day 21....lol Even with a fan forced air incubator I have those cooler areas, that will cause slower developement in chicks.

Agreed! I rotate my eggs around the bator when I turn them so they are not sitting in the same area of the incubator through the whole incubation process.

 

[chickienewbie88]

I think ill switch sides for them then and hopefully that, with the lower humidity overall, might put them closer together air cell wise. I just really dont want to have 4 dead chicks because their air cells didnt develop on my very first incubation.. so we'll see how it goes. ill move them today.. lockdown is tuesday, so hopefully i'll have 8 beautiful, healthy chicks to share with you all by friday! (Fingers crossed!!)

 

[calichicken]

I think ill switch sides for them then and hopefully that, with the lower humidity overall, might put them closer together air cell wise. I just really dont want to have 4 dead chicks because their air cells didnt develop on my very first incubation.. so we'll see how it goes. ill move them today.. lockdown is tuesday, so hopefully i'll have 8 beautiful, healthy chicks to share with you all by friday! (Fingers crossed!!)

Good luck! Let us know how your hatch goes!