Dead Chick Question

[angelbabyamy]

One of my BLRW died after pipping. He had a little hole in the egg and his beak was showing. I set some Polish eggs, FBCM and the Wyandottes and they were due today. The Polish started pipping on day 19 and the Marans followed and hatched yesterday and today. The Wyandottes were the last to hatch and seemed to have some trouble. I peeled away the shell and membrane from the dead chick and there were 2 membranes surrounding the chick. I did help my last Wyandotte chick hatch because he seemed to have the same problem. They both had sticky heads and what appears to be 2 membranes. The chick I helped has one eye shut- i think it has sticky gunk on it.
The Wyandotte eggs were in the same trays as the others. Was my humidity too high? The others hatched fine. I had 3 thermometers (with humdity) in there. 2 digital and 1 analog and they always said the temp was 99.6. I had one on each tray in different places. I kept the humidity around 40-50% and about 65% during lockdown. I am using a homemade incubator with a fan.
This is my first hatch and I now have 9 FBCM, 8 BKRW and 4 Polish chicks! Yaay!! I started with 40 eggs. Only 2 of my mail order eggs hatched. Any suggestions?

 

[Gypsy07]

21 chicks out of 40 eggs is pretty good for a first hatch! How many of the 40 eggs were shipped?

And if you count the shipped eggs and the non-shipped eggs separately, how many of each hatched?

Sounds like you did pretty good overall though...

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

with incubating where you get over 50% you did great, I never expect more than 50%, If I get it great a lot of times you don't, if they where shipped eggs 50% is great

 

[angelbabyamy]

Quote:
I had eleven Maran eggs I bought online- only 2 hatched

1 Dozen Maran chicks from local breeder- 7 hatched

1 dozen BLRW eggs from local breeder- 8 hatched 1 died after pipping

5 Polish eggs- 4 hatched- they were from my chickens

I was hoping more of the eggs I bought online would hatch because they were from different lines.
I was pretty pleased with the outcome! I was just wondering if I did something wrong!

 

[4-H chicken mom]

I agree with the others, that is a pretty good hatch rate. My only question is did you calibrate your hygrometer before you started to see if it was reading correctly? I have bought many that were all off. Some by 5% others were off by 10%. Below is a link to instructions. Congrats on your hatching.
http://www.ehow.com/how_2362421_calibrate-hygrometer.html

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Sticky chicks are from too high humidity. It's also the number one cause of chicks that pip the aircell and then die. They drown because not enough water has evaporated during the incubation period. Lower your humidity during incubation to around 35% (or somewhere around there...not much higher) and you'll find you hatch a LOT more chicks.

 

[angelbabyamy]

Thank you! I have an ancient incubator that holds humidity well. I live in Oregon and even when my pan went dry my humidity read 37%.

 

[Gypsy07]

So how many eggs out of the 40 were infertile? Blood rings? Early quitters? Did you candle and keep track of that, or did you go into lockdown with all 40 eggs still in the bator? Did you open up the other ones that didn't hatch to have a look?

It does sound like the humidity was a bit high for your Wyandotte chicks, but if the other eggs hatched on time and those chicks weren't sticky, it sounds like the humidity was fine for them. Hmm. Perhaps the Wyandottes had thicker shells, so that they lost moisture at a slower rate than the other eggs? Perhaps they were in a slightly cooler spot in your bator and that's why they took an extra day to start hatching? It could be a number of things...

I'd agree to keep your humidity down a bit though. Maybe 40%?

 

[calgal98]

I did an eggtopsy on a pipped/no hatch chick and rather than drowning found that he had pipped through a blood vessel. There was a large clot of blood in the egg. It is something to think about when an egg fails. I think this one bled to death.

 

[Kavellion]

How often and at what angle were the eggs turned at, just curious.