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

[Sally Sunshine]

I am gonna take a break, need to go feed water and lock up my gang..... be back.... PROMISE clock ticking

 

[Sally Sunshine]

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.

Doug I still say humidity and low temps is your issue

Hey guys! Ok, today marks week 1 of incubation for Cappa's eggs. I never ever see her off the nest so it's been hard to candle and I have no clue what's developing. The quail eggs seem to be doing fine- Cappa is so extremely small she doesn't seem to be squishing them at all. They should start hatching in a little over a week and the chickens should hatch a couple days after.. I hope she gets something! The poor girl really wants to be a mommy!

Sparky! our Cot quail are due to hatch any day now!! come on Cappa!!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

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 I would love for you to weigh a tray of eggs the next time, and weigh in as you go. if you do the entire tray it will save you time. there are links in that hatching 101 article.

those chicks look big and wet, too high humidity and possible low temps. what do you typically run your humidity at?

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Sorry that I haven't posted much lately. We were camping for Memorial Day Weekend.

Doug - Sorry about all of the dead chicks. I don't have any advice, but I will tell you that this has happened to me twice before. Both times involved shipped eggs and I have no idea why it happened. I don't believe that I had any problems with humidity, but just like you, I had a ton of fully formed wet chicks that never internally pipped. I decided that I must have gotten weak chicks due to poor parent nutrition, but I'm really not sure.

Sally - I just wanted to say that I've been thinking about you. I hope that all is well. We miss you!


and since it looks like no one has posted this. Happy Memorial Day! I hope that everyone had a great weekend!

I hope you had a good time coch!

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

LOL awesome!

Quote: With the seasons comes change inside the house as well, even with Central Air, even though now that I don't have it I notice it 100x more! uggggggg

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.

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

yup yup! thumbs up!

The air cells of my goose eggs have dipped down and I see shadowing!

They have begun the long, risky process of hatching. I'm so nervous yet I'm so excited! I can't wait to have goslings again!

oh COCH!!!! YAYAYYAYYAA

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Hi everyone! When I was turning the eggs a few days ago, I smelled something bad. I found the bad egg and removed it. It looked like it had never started developing.

Then yesterday was day 14 so I candled. I had to remove 2 more clears and a blood ring

So now I only have 8 out of the original 14 left in the incubator.

1 very early death (BCM)
1 blood ring with a dead embryo (EE)
3 scrambled yolks from shipping (All BCM)
1 stinker that was not developing (BCM)

In the incubator I still have.

1 EE
2 SC (these look very healthy. They have bright red veins and movement!)
5 BCM (I saw movement in a few)

So does this all sound normal or am I doing something wrong?

sounds normal, shipping is hard on eggs, sometimes you can luck out though.

Quote: the bigger gram scales are not that expensive either, more so loosing all these chicks!

 

[cochins1088]

Sally's back!

I hope you had a great time!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Sally's back!

I hope you had a great time!

it was nice when we got back home lol! weather was cold and rainy! kids drove me INSANE seriously insane! all that energy and no where to go with it! I took them on the beach in the rain! but even though it was raining the wind was so bad it was still pelting us with sand! it was nuts!!!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

White Faced Spanish are growing fast! Roo with his 3 gals.... look at the wattles/combs already! And the roo is getting his whiteness already! they are about 2.5 months old!
Roo has the MOST AWESOMESST tail feathers EVER!!! I gotta snap a pick, these birds are very fast and crazy runners, remind me of my kids! never sit still, that's why I grabbed this pic when I could! I never seen them rest together like this!! and all 4 together!

 

[silver1313]

Today's summary 5/27/2013

Doug has put the high spiking eggs into lockdown - 48/83 but the numbers might drop after he ndles

Tony suggested doug not raise the humidity so high next time and see if that helps
mstricer suggested lower humidity as well
as did sumi who shared these two links on humidity
and dry hatching : chickens.com/a/how-to-incubate-hatch-eggs-using-the-dry-incubation-method
http://www.brinsea.com/customerservice/humidity.html

and mstricer asked where has sally been

hill hopes everyones hatches are going ok and is stil lwaiting to go into lockdown on 8 eggs
and played eater egg hunt and finally found her chickens eggs

waffle says there is a need to figure out the new incubator and it is dry there

Rennerae asked if new chicks would be too young for preventative corrid as the feed store she goes to is out of medicated feed

doug added a touch of water and is at 74% so he took the lid off and got it down to 67% and is thinking about removing all the water

cochins air cells have dipped and there is shadowing !! go little goslings
and says she had chicks similar to doug's klost ones before and it wsnt humidity but rather poor parent nutrition in the shipped eggs
and she has been thinking about sally and wished us all a happy memorial day
cochins also suggested doug try weighing the eggs if it is a humidity issue

doug replied he has nothing to weigh them but is taking the lid off everytime the humidity goes over 70 to see if that helps

sally posted pics - post #16663

chickenpoop lady asked if things sound normal over in her incubator - post 16664
maryhysong said yes

and sally caught up with most everyone on several posts right after this one and stated than if anyone has questions they setill need answered feel free to post or pm her
and said looks like doug's issue might well be humidity and possibly low temps
and said come on cappa for sparky

cochins says yay sallys back and i am sure we all share that sentiment and she said it was nice when they got back home !!

SALLY

and



EVERYONE !!!

For Now

Secretary Silver

 

[kaybee123]

What does low temps do to the eggs?