Day 17 lots of movement, Day 18 no movement & aircell is quite large......scared!

[I Heart Chicks]

Today will be day 20.

I am hatching 2 of my bantam hens' eggs. I am very excited and have been tracking these through candling since the beginning. I candled on day 16 & 17 and saw A LOT of movement in both eggs then Day 18, no movement at all, day 19, nothing, and the air cell seems very large in one of the eggs. I am worried that these quit very late. Should I give up or continue waiting. on day 15 the humidity dropped significantly (my fault) for about a day, but I brought it back up as soon as I noticed the cells were dry, but it dropped to about 25% : ( The temp has been a steady 99.5-100 degrees, but it is still air...I didnt know it had to be higher until yesterday. Please help me! Is there still a chance my babies are alive, but cant move for some reason? If not, why would they both expire the same day?

 

[Jacobnlynn]

Haha... I had to go out of town, my incubator runs out of water every other day and drops into the 20's. It had dropped for a couple days and I'm still getting 70% hatch of setting#. I think you are taking them out too often though. They should be sitting still by now to position for hatching. Bring your relative humidity up to about 45-48% (any higher and the navels don't want to close, much lower and they stick) and don't open until they've had at LEAST 36 hours from pipping. Otherwise that quick opening of the lid will dry them out enough to stick them to that membrane and you'll have to help them hatch.. but if it's done too early the navel won't be closed up. Also, all this taking them out could have chilled them so they aren't strong enough to hatch. You can't encourge them to hatch.. they've gotta start that whole process on their own.. but to throw them out on day 20 seems a bit..... crazy. I usually have some starters near the end of day 20, day 21 is the day of crazy hatching.. and some finish up as late as day 23. You see one chick flipped on it's back but others are still hatching? Leave the incubator shut.. he'll eventually get up and the others will be better for it.

 

[Jacobnlynn]

What do you mean you didn't know it had to be higher? 99.5-100 is the temp right.. if the chicks are growing then the temp was probably spot-on... I'd just worry about the daily chilling weakening them. Still airs are terrible, except in warm climates. If you're going to be running it much, get an Egg O Meter.. they run about $25 but they'll tell you the temp of the inside of an egg. I found mine on Ebay. It keeps a high/low record and you can set an alarm to go off at 99f for low and if it goes over 100f. Then you just have to worry about humidity.

 

[Tracy the chick]

Dont worry about the large air cell thats normal, i marked my air sells from day 10 and by day 19 when i put them on lackdown they were massive, 14 out of 18 and the last 3 only died due to pipping wrong end.. Whats your temp and humidity now hun?

 

[I Heart Chicks]

Thank you for your replies. Today is day 20. I probably had been doing a little too much handling..(1 x/Day)..It is hard not to, but I have the eggs sitting still now and will not touch them. One problem is that I have 6 other eggs on a different schedule so I have to keep turning them, so I have to open the hova. I have a feeling the 2 expired though because of all the rapid movement on day 17 and none on day 18 and the very large air cell in one egg. Makes me sad.

I heard that with still air incubators you have to keep the temp at 102 F. It was always kept at 95.5 to 100F no higher, no lower. I guess I will just have to wait it out. I feel bad though, like I did something wrong. I am sure I did. But I have to move on. I will let you know the outcome in a few days or so. Wish us luck, this is a first go at it!

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Today will be day 20.

I am hatching 2 of my bantam hens' eggs. I am very excited and have been tracking these through candling since the beginning. I candled on day 16 & 17 and saw A LOT of movement in both eggs then Day 18, no movement at all, day 19, nothing, and the air cell seems very large in one of the eggs. I am worried that these quit very late. Should I give up or continue waiting. on day 15 the humidity dropped significantly (my fault) for about a day, but I brought it back up as soon as I noticed the cells were dry, but it dropped to about 25% : ( The temp has been a steady 99.5-100 degrees, but it is still air...I didnt know it had to be higher until yesterday. Please help me! Is there still a chance my babies are alive, but cant move for some reason? If not, why would they both expire the same day?

All is not lost. The first thing we need to know in order to guide you is what humidity you have been running at. If you have been using the dry incubation method with low humidity between 20% and 35%, then it is normal to have large air cells going into lockdown. In this case it is important to raise the humidity up to 70 or 75% during lock down. If the chicks are a little dry this will help them not get shrink wrapped by the membrane during the hatching process.

I have a hatch going on right now. My eggs were too wet because I ran high humidity for the first 18 days. On my last batch of 15 eggs, all but three drown as a result of too much humidity during incubation. When I discovered this, I decided to to run a dry lockdown to dry them out a little. So far I have got six chicks. Some were a little sticky, but they all survived. When I candled the eggs going into lockdown, I only saw movement in two eggs and assumed that the rest were dead. But they hatched out just fine. Don't give up, and keep us updated on the progress.

 

[I Heart Chicks]

My temp is at 100 F and humidity I took up a bit for my hopeful hatching...up to about 70%. I have seen many suggestion about exactly what humidity the incubators should be at and it is anywhere from 30% - 90% at hatching time.....I just dont know what is the RIGHT humidity.

 

[adrian]

The chicks will stop moving for a while once they are in position to internally pip. And then the air cell will grow quite a lot, often slanting. This is perfectly normal and exactly what you would want to see. For chickens, by the way, I usually like my humidity to be at 60-65%. I find 60% is often enough, as long as I don't open the lid, and every new hatched chick adds humidity. 65% is probably great, 70% might be as well, I often don't raise it until I see an external pip, though, because I don't want the egg to be too wet inside before they have more air, and I have found excessive humidity (usually over 70%) can do this.

 

[I Heart Chicks]

They didnt hatch, I dont think they are going too. This is very sad...if only I knew what I did wrong....next time, I am only going to candle the eggs once to make sure they are fertile, then I will leave them alone.

 

[cashdl]

Today is only day 21 right. You are panicking needlessly. Never give up untill day 25. I have some batches that hatch on Day 19 or 20 and some hatch on day 22 0r 23, Usually my blue eggers hatch early and my araucana hatch late. Don't know why.

So my advice is just leave them be and wait. Its nerve wracking I know. I have been doing this non stop for the last 5 years and each batch I still wonder if they are going to hatch. LOL!



Lanae