Drowning Chicks I need some Advice…

[casportpony]

I wonder if your cardboard egg cartons are damp.

 

[ZeiaZeia]

They don’t feel wet but I could try another set

 

[ZeiaZeia]

As I said if it did not peep internally (i.e. broke membrane to gasp first air from air cell), than it failed to peep.
And if it did drown, it could only be due to excess liquid inside the egg due to not enough air cell development due to high humidity during many days of incubation and not due to high humidity outside egg during few days of lockdown for hatching

 

[ZeiaZeia]

I understand yes they failed to peep they did not break the membrane between the air cell and the chick. There was fluid inside with the chick but the air cells were bone dry. The chicks heads were under their wings upside down.

 

[ZeiaZeia]

it is possible for chicks to drown and it is possible for them to suffocate in the egg but drowning is ridiculously rare.

Out of these 23 none will have drowned. I can see I won't get any upvotes to that statement yet if I said they all drowned I would get 5 likes. I will still say it!

The next person will say half of his drowned because liquid came out. The next person will say oh this happened to me too. Seems they all drown...

Hogwash. What makes liquid remain at hatching time is an uneven temperature.

The thing that influences growth rate the most is temperature. Humidity doesn't play much role in that. The humidity will just influence the air cell size. Too big or too small will cause problems sure but not as much as the wrong temperature.

So if the temperature is not right then the embrio will not develop as well and excess liquid will remain. The chick will be too weak and will die in the shell before even breaking the membrane. Thus confirming it was impossible for the chick to drown. They swim in the liquid for 3 weeks, it's only once they pierce the first membrane that they start breathing!

These chicks hadn't even pierced the membrane before they "drowned"

I just don't like people making the wrong conlusions - ie to change the humidity when that won't fix a single egg surviving any better.

It’s my understanding they “failed to peep” they did not break the membrane between the air cell and the chick and fluid was inside with the chick.

 

[ZeiaZeia]

It's possible you could have a leak from the water reservoir into the base. If your RCOM50 is like the RCOM20, there is a tube that connects the left and right water reservoirs. Take it apart and fill just one reservoir slowly - water should flow through the tube and into the second reservoir, there should be no leaks into the base. Check the tube as well as both reservoirs. The larger base area that's under the turning plate should always be dry.

I just emptied all the water out and dried all the wells.

 

[ZeiaZeia]

As CanandaEh said you should run a dehumidifier or air conditioner to get extra humidity out of the air in the incubator room.

I’ll have to try this

 

[ZeiaZeia]

As for the RCOM sensors, I doubt they are wrong, but there is that possibility. Damage can occur from contamination (eg. fluff from a hatch) of the sensor. We always run our RCOM20 with additional standalone sensors in amongst the eggs. The Xiaomi Mijia Bluetooth humidity sensor is very small and has a high quality digital humidty/temperature sensor (same as the rcom main sensor). You can find these for around $11 each on ebay (US based), or around $5 each if you can afford to wait a couple of months from non-US sellers on ebay, or on aliexpress.

View attachment 2954555

One caveat: these display only Celsius. It is possible to reprogram/flash them to display Fahrenheit but that requires some fiddling around using an android phone. If you're reasonably technical it's not difficult. FWIW we just leave them in Celsius

I am going to by this thank you very much!

 

[casportpony]

I am going to by this thank you very much!

Buy two, one for the incubator, one for outside the incubator.

 

[ZeiaZeia]

Good idea !