Early Lockdown???

[reinet130]

I have eggs we put in the incubator 6/14 and have been hand turning daily. I was planning on lockdown on Wed but today 3 of the eggs are VERY active! Should I stop turning and keep the lid shut? I just put a thermometer with humidity on it a few days ago and my humidity was 64% so I pulled one of the plugs and got it down to 50-54%. Should I raise it back up?

Any advise would be most helpful. We bought the bator after our broody hen stopped sitting 2 weeks in and only had 1 out of 10 hatch out. This time we put 15 in from the next boxes (though we had been camping the 3 days prior). 5 are from our recently departed rooster and one candled negative of those, 4 others are questionable, the rest candled well at day 10

TIA!

 

[GitaBooks]

If it was warm when the eggs were laid they may have begun incubation before they were placed in the incubator. You could try an early lockdown.

This link will help you determine if they are near hatching or not. Some of the pictures are a little gross, however: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2012/03/chicken-embryo-development-views-from.html


Best of luck!

 

[reinet130]

As of last night we have 6 that are rocking and rolling. I the humidity is up to 54% and the temp is 100. Hopefully I'm doing this right! Thanks for the link!

 

[reinet130]

13 out of 14 are moving now! Official lockdown is today though I did minimal turning yesterday. Will see what happens in these next few days! It's fun just watching them wiggle, kind of like dualing banjos when one gets going and another answers

 

[reinet130]

We put 15 eggs in, one candled negative and 5 hatched July 4 and one July 5th. I did an eggtopsy tonight on the remaining 8 and one stopped developing probably day 5/6, one still had an egg sac attached, and the remaining looked like they should have hatched. The inner membrane on all but 1 was still wet and slimy but wrapped around the chicks. I took pictures if anyone wants to see.

This was our first time start to finish with the brooder so overall I thought 6 was OK but curious if I could have done anything different. We didn't get a thermometer that measures humidity until day 15 but kept it between 55-65 after that.

 

[GitaBooks]

100% hatch rates are very rare in incubators. From what I've heard its usually around 70-80% if nothing goes wrong. Humidity, genetics, nutrition of the parents, egg shape, temperature, turning the eggs, oxygen intake, and many other things can determine whether or not an egg will hatch.

Congratulations on the new chicks!

 

[Cherie1n2]

We put 15 eggs in, one candled negative and 5 hatched July 4 and one July 5th. I did an eggtopsy tonight on the remaining 8 and one stopped developing probably day 5/6, one still had an egg sac attached, and the remaining looked like they should have hatched. The inner membrane on all but 1 was still wet and slimy but wrapped around the chicks. I took pictures if anyone wants to see.

This was our first time start to finish with the brooder so overall I thought 6 was OK but curious if I could have done anything different. We didn't get a thermometer that measures humidity until day 15 but kept it between 55-65 after that.

I'd love to see the eggtopsy photos