Diary & Notes ~ Air Cell Detatched SHIPPED Chicken Eggs for incubation and hatching

[Doug Hodges]

I'm in North Arkansas. We do have relatively high humidity. Right now it's 61% humidity. That's about normal. Sally wanted me to post pics and results of this hatch because this has been an ongoing problem. I'm losing chicks in the last few days of incubation.

 

[silver1313]

Weekend Summary 5/25 ~ 5/26 2013

Mollybuck likes our summaries and now has two teenagers in the house !!

Waffle chicken - mix thyme and butter and rub it unfder the skin, lemon and lime under the skin and in the cavity of the bird, then pour beer inside the bird until it starts overflowing ... then you can add honey to the stock to thicken it up for a gravy for the chicken ... does sound yummy

As of saturday doug had 6 chicks out ( i know he is updated) and had chicks with poopy butts and one of the chicks had doug entertained running around with a grasshopper

chirp likes the notes as well

tony suggested olive oil for the poopy butts doug has and posted pics on 16597 of his heritage dellies

Rennerae's darker silkie pipped wrong and had curled toes .. so she booted it

Doug posted pics on post 16601

mstricer had a very disturbing oops wrong egg event !!!! post 16602 ... ugg

it happened to sumi once before too only hers was boiled

one of renne's babies on post 16605

doug was grossed out by the oops wrong egg stories

Renne's booted silkie is on post 16610

sumi said the boots should sort it out and wished renne good luck with the chick

gracieo2 posted an adorable picture of a chick in a mini boat withonions growing beside it lol post 16612
and says that have flood warnings and the river is almost over and it was trying to snow ?!?

3DChicken loves her dad because he is building her a chicken coop ..

chickengirl13-4 asked for help:
Ok...it's day 24 and I have one egg still alive! I opened the air cell up and it's still got veins and red quite a bit. I didn't break the inner sac I just wetted it with a qtip. Also it's upside down. I took the whole top off of the air cell looking for the beak but it's nowhere to be found. so it's 3 days late, not ready to come out, and upside down. Blah! I just wet the membranes and put it back. Anything else I can do?
I suggested reading the assisted hatch article
and sumi said -
Find it's beak and free it so it can breathe. Then leave it in the incubator with the humidity high so it doesn't try out while it finishes absorbing the blood and yolk. Whatever you do don't remove any more of the inner membrane than needed to get it's beak clear.

TnJ assured renne that the chick should be up and running around in no time

post 16624 are renne's gorgeous new babies

update on doug's eggs 15/30

dcba had 7 hatch but lost two already this morning ...still considers it a good hatch though

Tony and all of us are missing Sally !!

bantamfam candled at day 7 and looks like all are developing so far
seems she is losing one every night and not sure why ...

renne asked how long the boots stay on and found out her almost 4 year old put some more eggs in the bator for her lol

Cappa is on week one of incubation over at sparky's and sparky hopes she gets something as she really wants to be a mom

mstricer wanted to candle hers but they were all mean and biting

doug posted eggtopsy pictures on post 16639 for sally to see when she gets back like she asked ... they are a little graphic for those who are squeamish
did get 16 or 17 chicks and 12/18 shipped eggs hatched


mstricer asked if it was humid where doug lived and he replied in the affirmitive

For Now

Secretary Silver

 

[TweetyNPetey]

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I haven't been on BYC in a bit. Well. Wobbles went for his very first swimming lesson... And he is a natural born swimmer! He has never been in water before, but he is swimming around a sink filled with 1 foot of warm water! He loved it! He was paddling with little webbed feet swimmin' around! AWWWWW

 

[Doug Hodges]

Remember my 120degree spike eggs. I'm putting 48 out of 83 into lockdown tomorrow. Going to get new batteries tomorrow as my candler is getting dim. That total might change after tomorrow's candle.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

Ok. We've got to get this figured out. I lost another 13 fully formed chicks with exposed yolk sacks after lockdown. I think they drowned. I'm keeping humidity at around 30% the first 18 days and raising it at the end to 70 to 80%. Should I not add so much water at lockdown. I think I'm going to keep it lower. I'm going to post pictures. They are pretty graphic. When I open the egg, I can pour water out. They have plenty of air cavity. Only two out of 13 had internal pips. They all looked exactly like these pictures.

This is the only internal pip and it had water in the shell

Unless someone says differently, I'm going to keep my humidity lower at hatch time. All my unhatched chicks have been like this. I think it's drowning.

Opinions?

On a good note. I do have 16 or 17 new chicks and 12 out of 18 shipped eggs hatched.

With the dry method I keep mine around 37% then only raise it to around 62%. 80 seems too high. I would try not to raise it so much the next hatch and see what happens.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

Where do you live? Is it humid in your house? Try keeping it right around 65% and don't add water until the first pip. If I'm wrong please someone correct me. I've had much better hatches doing this.

X2

 

[NestingHillsSC]

I'm in North Arkansas. We do have relatively high humidity. Right now it's 61% humidity. That's about normal. Sally wanted me to post pics and results of this hatch because this has been an ongoing problem. I'm losing chicks in the last few days of incubation.

The summer time changes everything. Humidity a lot higher in the room. Mine has been running between 40-42% for almost 18 days now. A bit high for my liking but can't get it any lower because it's summer. I filled the pan up with water when I started and haven't put a drop in it this whole time. And only about 3 inches of the water is exposed. Have the rest covered up with foil. In the winter I have a hard time getting it to 35% for the first 18 days. And at lock down just to get it to 52% I have to use 3 pans of water. So I am learning the time of year has a lot to do with the humidity levels. I'm in the south too, so it is very humid here too. If you are always raising the levels so high at lock down all the time then that must be the problem if your getting the same results. Again to me, if your running the humdity so low for the first 18 days when you jump it up to 70-80%, it would be like poring a gallon of water on them. You don't need that much humidity at lock down with the dry method.

 

[mstricer]

I'm in North Arkansas. We do have relatively high humidity. Right now it's 61% humidity. That's about normal. Sally wanted me to post pics and results of this hatch because this has been an ongoing problem. I'm losing chicks in the last few days of incubation.

Doug, Sally is better at this then me, but I won't add any water at all during your hatches, since your humidity is so high in your area and then take it to about 45- 50 during your hatch. I stop using a hydrometer due to it driving me crazy, maybe Sumi or Sally will join us and can answer better. When your chicks drown it is happening from too much humidity during the incubation period, water collects in the air sac and then when they pip internally they drown. Try a dry hatch which your humidity inside the incubator should be right around 30% no lower then 25%. I get that in Ohio right now without adding water. Give it a try. I hope your hatch goes well.
Michele

 

[mstricer]

I have 15 Gold Neck and Mille Fleur d'Uccles, cooking right now they were shipped eggs and she did a great job with sending them, this is what I got going from 18 eggs, and I let them sit for close to 5 days before setting. I can't wait I've been looking for Gold Necks for a long time, so excited.

 

[sumi]

Have you read this: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-incubate-hatch-eggs-using-the-dry-incubation-method?

I'd suggest lowering the lockdown humidity to around 65%. I agree, if there was water in the shell the humidity was too high at some point.

Here's another good read on humidity:

http://www.brinsea.com/customerservice/humidity.html