egg pipping and humidity

[myhappyfeathers]

I'm wondering if I should get my humidity to 80% on my next batch, In the mean time I'm also working on getting one of my girls to go broody. Haven't had much luck with that either.

 

[satay]

No don't use 80% thats to high and you run the risk of them drowing in the shell. This is what i use but everyone is slightly different. I use 45% for day 1 to 18 and 65% from day 18 to 21 or until they hatch.

 

[myhappyfeathers]

I'll try that on my next batch, I should be putting them in on Fri. I always thought 65 was to low for the last 3 days. So glad you told me, now I know why I've been having such bad luck with my hatches not hatching.

 

[theberlinfam]

I just had a really poor hatch (only 1 chick out of 9 hatched) due to high humidity. I live in Florida so I'm trying a dry hatch this time around as our relative humidity runs so high. All the eggs that developed, the chicks were fully developed and drowned in their shell (I learned this from a few wonderful BYCers). Thank the Lord for BYC!

 

[myhappyfeathers]

I love it here on BYC too. what is dry incubating, I've heard of it once before. Can someone please explain how this works.

 

[20736]

I have never had a chick I "helped" live longer than 5 days.
Congrats on your first incubation.
You will improve over future hatches. Enjoy the fruits of your labors.

 

[myhappyfeathers]

We're almost to day three, so far baby is doing great. just started eating pretty good today, drinking ok. but all in all very lively.

 

[dim2035]

Congratulations on your Hatchlings. We are on our third batch right now.

First batch of 7 (only 1 hen of 4 currently laying) eggs…we hatched 3..one of which died after hatching. The hen had just started laying so some of the eggs were not fertile.

Second batch of 10 we got 1. We were very saddened by this and think that it was our fault because we had not managed the humidity correctly and we feel the eggs didn't dry out enough. I beat myself up pretty badly over this but I learned so much.

Now on our third batch…we have been religious about adjusting the humidity!! They were due to hatch tomorrow but we already have at least 5 out of our batch of 25 (3 of the 4 hens and maybe the 4th one laying) eggs that have pipped and I hear PEEPING! Yay!

The lesson here is…just keep at it. We aren't born experts..we strive to grow and learn from our mistakes!

You are doing an excellent job!