First egg pipped, but now I am concerned about the fan noise

[laputa]

My first quail egg just pipped this morning (well not really a hole yet, just a small crack on the shell), and now I start to become really concerned about what the fan noise/vibration will do to the chicks trying to push its way out.

I modded my still air hovabator with a fan mounted on the top, blowing air upwards. It definitely helped to stabilize the temperature and humidity. I tried to mount the fan as stable as I can, with some buffer material to lower the vibration, still, when the fan is on, it has a low noise and vibration, I believe mostly coming from the motor.

The noise is not that loud, but it is something I don't want to sleep at night in the same room with. So it is definitely louder than a computer fan. I would say it is close to the noise from a fridge when a fridge turns on. And if I place my ear right next to the incubator, I don't think I can stand the noise for more than a minute.

Do you guys think this will in any way hurt the chicks and impede them from getting out? At this point I don't worry too much about if it hurts embryo since it is already at this late stage. Should I stop the fan and take some risk in the temperature/humidity fluctuation - will have to adjust the thermostat as well since the heat source from the fan will be gone, hoping the chicks still in the shell will do better without the noise?

Also I have been watching the egg once every few minutes for about 2 hours now, and other than the few pieces of egg fragment around the crack got pushed out in a jerking motion once in a while, the crack did not get any bigger, and no beak has sticked out yet. You can tell I am really worried lol.

Any input is much appreciated!

 

[Yard full o' rocks]

I have a Hovabator Genesis with the fan built in....it too can be noisy and vibrate. Hasn't bothered my chicks hatching at all. Best of luck!!!

 

[monarc23]

I dont think it will cause any issue with the chicks hatching

 

[laputa]

Thank you so much and that's great news for me! You could imagine the nervousness of a first time hatcher... how long on average should I expect the chick to get out before the first sign of piping? I was reading all the posts about people wanting to help their chicks get out, and now I am very much in the same boat.

 

[byoung14ever]

DON'T DO IT!! I learned the hard way that most helped out will die anyhow. It may take 24 hours after pippin to hatch out. They are resting for the big breakout. After 24 you may consider helping if they aren't progressing. I use tweezers to pip around the top and let them do the rest.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I agree, there is almost no reason why you should help a chick hatch. Now if it is something like the membrane dried on the chick AND the chick is partially zipped AND obviously stuck, you might be able to help it and it will be fine. But more times than not, a helped chick will just die anyway. It's hard to deal with, but that's life. If they are meant to hatch, 99.5% of the time, they can do it on their own

 

[austin12895]

I had a 5 duck eggs in the incubator that hatched about three weeks ago. Three of them I helped one did it by himself and one died. The three that I helped were absolutly fine, nothing wrong and went to there new home a few days ago. The one who did it all by himself was not so luck and for some odd reason died after about a week. I do not beleive there is anything wrong with helping.

 

[laputa]

Now about 9 hours passed from first sign of piping, from what I can tell, for some reason, the body part where the chick pipped the shell seems like its elbow, not its beak. For the past 7 hours, it did nothing but try to push that elbow around and out, and the hole is not getting any bigger. I don't see any crack elsewhere, doesn't look a zip is going to happen soon. Is it normal a chick actually pip using something other than its beak? And how successful would that be?

 

[austin12895]

It may be getting in position to zip. I would leave it for about 3 hours yet. I give them 12 hours and then I help. People may agrue to wait 24 hours but. Ive only waited 12 hours and have not yet killed a sinlge chick or duckling yet.

 

[Akane]

It shouldn't bother them and besides if you've had the fan running all hatch they've already been hearing it. They aren't deaf in those eggs. Chickens at least will cluck to their chicks and communicate before they even get ready to hatch. Noise around the incubator and the noise of hatched chicks peeping can motivate others to hatch faster even if they haven't pipped yet. They've been hearing that fan for days already.

Quail chicks will frequently seem to skip zipping. They'll pip, sit there, sit there, sit there, and then suddenly pop out. Sometimes you don't even see a line around the egg. That's why people often compare large quail hatches to popping popcorn.