Egg carton wet help

kelliepulido

Songster
11 Years
Mar 18, 2008
1,713
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st.john's mi
Well it is day 18 lastnnite I uppped the humidty this am about 4am I noticed the cardboard egg carton had absorbed waterabout 1/2 way so about 1/2 of the carton was damp I quickly switched out the carton do you think the chicks are harmed?
 
You really should take the eggs out of the carton and lay them on their side as if they were under a hen. all comercial hatcheries do this and the hatching trays in gqf's and others don't have racks.
 
That would be a matter of opinion. I have much better hatches from shipped eggs when left in the carton during hatching. It seems to make it easier for them to position for pipping and I don't get as many pips in weird places.

Getting wet over night could harm them but if it wasn't for long and the carton wasn't dripping then most should be fine. I had similar happen with some button quail eggs and only lost the one right in the center of the wettest spot.
 
That's not really opinion. It's a fact that all commercial hatcheries do this. it must be for a reason. Also all gqf's and dickey's are desined that way.
 
It's also fact that dozens if not 100s of people have been carton hatching and having higher hatch rates on average under certain circumstances. Hatchery conditions are not home incubator conditions and just because one way works doesn't mean another way doesn't work. I also specifically mentioned shipped eggs which hatcheries do not deal with. I don't generally carton hatch my own eggs aside from button quail which are just a pain to handle the small eggs individually but I do frequently carton hatch shipped eggs. Air cells are often odd shapes or in odd places in shipped eggs and chicks are more likely to pip weird directions. I've had many completely miss the air cell and go straight through the top of the egg while it's on it's side. Putting them in cartons I have maybe 1 pip a weird direction for every 2 dozen I hatch instead of more than half of them pipping weird.
 
Eggs from your own hens, or from a local source, might be better off on the sides, a more natural position, but that's not true of shipped eggs.

If you try to hatch shipped eggs with damaged air cells on their sides, you are at much higher risk of not hatching any. Hatcheries are not hatching eggs that have been scrambled by the post office.

Also, many auto-turners hold eggs upright, and tip from side to side. People get good hatch rates with those all the time.
 

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