Eggtopsy photo - chick drowned?

[blondie34]

Hi all! I was hoping someone could take a look at this picture and give me some ideas on what would cause 3/8 chicks in my incubator to die right before hatch.. after some research I'm thinking they may have "drowned" in the egg due to the humidity being a little high. All chicks were moving around in their shells on day 18 before I put them all into lockdown. Pic of eggtopsy below:



I have a Brinsea Octogon 20 Advance - I kept the humidity around 30-40% .. is this too high? If so, what is the recommended humidity for a still air incubator like the one I have? Any and all input is appreciated! TIA!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Hi all! I was hoping someone could take a look at this picture and give me some ideas on what would cause 3/8 chicks in my incubator to die right before hatch.. after some research I'm thinking they may have "drowned" in the egg due to the humidity being a little high. All chicks were moving around in their shells on day 18 before I put them all into lockdown. Pic of eggtopsy below:



I have a Brinsea Octogon 20 Advance - I kept the humidity around 30-40% .. is this too high? If so, what is the recommended humidity for a still air incubator like the one I have? Any and all input is appreciated! TIA!

30-40 is not high. (Unless the air cells say otherwise at candling.) The advance is forced air isnt it? The best way to learn how to adjust for humidity is monitoring the air cells. Here is an idea of how to do that: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity

What day did the hatchers hatch out at? What temps did the incubator hold?

 

[blondie34]

30-40 is not high. (Unless the air cells say otherwise at candling.) The advance is forced air isnt it? The best way to learn how to adjust for humidity is monitoring the air cells. Here is an idea of how to do that: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity

What day did the hatchers hatch out at? What temps did the incubator hold?

Thanks AmyLynn! The hatchers were on schedule on Friday and Saturday, days 21 and 22 respectively. My incubation temp was 99.5º throughout the entire incubation period. I thought that the air cells looked good when candeling the day before lockdown.. if anything they looked a little big.

This was my first hatch with the Brinsea Advance, I used to use a Styrofoam Little Giant so I'm trying to do a few test hatches with chicken eggs before I try and hatch out some peafowl eggs

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Thanks AmyLynn! The hatchers were on schedule on Friday and Saturday, days 21 and 22 respectively. My incubation temp was 99.5º throughout the entire incubation period. I thought that the air cells looked good when candeling the day before lockdown.. if anything they looked a little big.

This was my first hatch with the Brinsea Advance, I used to use a Styrofoam Little Giant so I'm trying to do a few test hatches with chicken eggs before I try and hatch out some peafowl eggs

There's always the fact that each egg is different and we just can't provide the ideal conditions for each egg we set. An egg more porous than the others may loose too much moisture or an egg with thicker shell may not loose enough.