FEB HATCH-ALONG THREAD ...COME JOIN US.... EVERYONE!

[gapeach717]

7 more are peeping inside the shell and have cracks in them. Another Phoenix egg has a hole in the membrane and you can see his little beak pulling at it. Hoping all goes well with this Phoenix chick. I feel like its my fault over the other dying. I know I shouldn't try to pull them out of the shells since it will hurt them but I could've and it may have saved him. All the other healthy babies think of me as momma bird. They all come running (as best as they can. More like wobbling very fast) when I walk by or put my finger in the brooder.

Dont feel like that. If anything it's your fault so many are living!!!

 

[Maah]

Just a quick update. I have had 3 of the 5 eggs hatch!!

And... all the hatched chicks seem healthy!!

Good legs! It must have been the rubber mat in the incubator!

The other 2 eggs (#1 and #7) have not progressed. Egg #1 we had thought was possibly a double yolk a week ago because of the sludge area. Egg #7 is the one that had the tiny chick and lots of clear on lockdown day. Since both were still alive and moving, I left them for lockdown. Neither egg has pipped internally or anything. However, on a couple small occasions I've seen movement in both eggs with my light. It was only slight movement, nothing major... so I guess we'll see. Saw movement in
#1 last night yet, and #7 this afternoon.

I have my 3 chicks in the brooder and have put the incubator back into lockdown. I'll see if there's any progress in those eggs tomorrow. Maybe they were just developing a little slower than the others and need a tad bit more time... ? No idea, but I don't have a ton of hope for either of them.

In the meantime, I got 3 cutie chickie-doodles!!

This is a picture of the first chick that hatched mostly all puffed up. They all look the same... LOL, little triplets. I'll try to get a better picture of them tomorrow once they're all up and puffy.

 

[gapeach717]

Yay!!!!!!! So cute!!!!

 

[littledon]

7 more are peeping inside the shell and have cracks in them. Another Phoenix egg has a hole in the membrane and you can see his little beak pulling at it. Hoping all goes well with this Phoenix chick. I feel like its my fault over the other dying. I know I shouldn't try to pull them out of the shells since it will hurt them but I could've and it may have saved him. All the other healthy babies think of me as momma bird. They all come running (as best as they can. More like wobbling very fast) when I walk by or put my finger in the brooder.

I have a styrofoam incubator with a plastic window. Just hatched 23 out of 26 eggs. The first one that peeped on day 21 had only his beak sticking out on day twenty three. Most of the rest were out so I took a chance and opened the plastic window quickly and took out the egg and closed the window. I helped him out but could see the membrane shrinking on him as i worked. Using warm water as I worked I finally got all the egg and membrane peeled away. Then put him back in the incubator. After fluffing up I but him in a box with a light with the others and noticed a circle of membrane dried on his back and had to wash him with warm water some more to remove it, back in the incubator till dry again. He Is the rut of the litter now but doing good. There were 4 eggs left on day 24 one with a small hole, so I took out the one with the small hole and started to peel, but this time more quickly and was able to remove him before the membrane stuck to him and he is doing great,the others were dead in there shell. Don't want to take them out if the incubator unless absolutely necessary, and don't open it if there are peeped eggs, it will shrink wrap them. If you can open and close it quickly with out losing humidity I have saved some. Good luck and don't sacrifice the many to save the one (for all you stare treck fans).Here's the babes at two and three days old now.

 

[gapeach717]

Look at your big ol litter of babies!!!! I love them all!!!! Congrats!!!!

 

[Debs55]

Well brooder did not get set up today the shed I'm putting it requires more work than we thought

 

[Jungleexplorer]

7 more are peeping inside the shell and have cracks in them. Another Phoenix egg has a hole in the membrane and you can see his little beak pulling at it. Hoping all goes well with this Phoenix chick. I feel like its my fault over the other dying. I know I shouldn't try to pull them out of the shells since it will hurt them but I could've and it may have saved him. All the other healthy babies think of me as momma bird. They all come running (as best as they can. More like wobbling very fast) when I walk by or put my finger in the brooder.

The rule of thumb is that if a chick cannot make it out of the shell on it's own, it is not going to live anyway or it is defective in some way. That said, if mistakes were made during incubation, such as too much humidity (or too little), then it may be okay to help them because their inability to hatch is not their fault. When I first got my GQF Genesis 1588, I followed the instructions to a T, 30% for 18 days and 65% during lockdown. I drowned $300 worth of shipped eggs (about 60 eggs) following those stupid instruction. The only chicks that survived, I saved by pulling them out of the shell before they drowned (once I figured out what was going on). They were cover with goo that instantly started to harden and I had to wash them all off in warm water to save them. My avatar is one of the chick I saved like this. So, sometimes it is okay to intervene. If I see a chick that has not hatched 24 after piping, I will go ahead and open the shell up enough for them to get out. They usually die anyway, but sometimes they make. The way I figure it, if they are going to die anyway, you might as well give it a try, you have nothing to lose. But wait at least 24 hours before helping.

Here are some chicks I saved from drowning.

 

[littledon]

I have only hatched two batches so I am new to this but hatched three out of five the first time and 23 out of 26 the second. I keep it at 60% the whole time and upped it a little at hatching, maybe I am just lucky. I read somewhere to do that, the instructions with the incubator I guess. I read the dry incubation method on a web site and will let the humidity drop sometimes early on but keep it up while hatching.

 

[hokankai]

You drowned them at those humidity's? That sounds like perfect dry incubation conditions to me, interesting. I have the same incubator. What do you do now?

I monitor all of mine by weight to ensure they lose the necessary amount of weight before lockdown.

The rule of thumb is that if a chick cannot make it out of the shell on it's own, it is not going to live anyway or it is defective in some way. That said, if mistakes were made during incubation, such as too much humidity (or too little), then it may be okay to help them because their inability to hatch is not their fault. When I first got my GQF Genesis 1588, I followed the instructions to a T, 30% for 18 days and 65% during lockdown. I drowned $300 worth of shipped eggs (about 60 eggs) following those stupid instruction. The only chicks that survived, I saved by pulling them out of the shell before they drowned (once I figured out what was going on). They were cover with goo that instantly started to harden and I had to wash them all off in warm water to save them. My avatar is one of the chick I saved like this. So, sometimes it is okay to intervene. If I see a chick that has not hatched 24 after piping, I will go ahead and open the shell up enough for them to get out. They usually die anyway, but sometimes they make. The way I figure it, if they are going to die anyway, you might as well give it a try, you have nothing to lose. But wait at least 24 hours before helping.

Here are some chicks I saved from drowning.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

You drowned them at those humidity's? That sounds like perfect dry incubation conditions to me, interesting. I have the same incubator. What do you do now?

I monitor all of mine by weight to ensure they lose the necessary amount of weight before lockdown.

I run my incubator totally dry for the first 18 days. The average humidity stays at 20% naturally. I must include here that I am using a rolling system and that my incubator is constantly full with 48 eggs. I move a dozen eggs to the hatcher and introduce a dozen new eggs into the incubator each week. I would not recommend someone that is hatching just a few eggs to try using a completely dry incubation like me. What you must understand is that, each eggs is losing moisture and with that many eggs in a small well sealed styrofoam incubator like the 1588, the eggs provide all the humidity they need. On day 18, I candle all the eggs with a 1000 lumen LED flashlight and observe the air sacks. If they look too small, I run a dry lockdown. Normally they are just right and then I run 40% humidity during lockdown. I have never had a candy wrapped chick. I crack every unhatched egg open and study it. Amazingly, I had still have some chicks drown. I have had some 100% hatches using this method, but usually I get 80 to 90%. All I know is that after trying many different methods and losing hundreds of dollars, this is the only method that works for me. What is really weird, is that I live in a desert and it is very dry here. You would think that I would have to add more humidity, but it just does not work, at least not for me.