Fully developed chicks never pipped.

[sixbabychicks14]

I am hoping someone will have an answer for me because i am just sick. Spent the weekend waiting on some little silkies to hatch and every last one of them that survived were helped out because they lay pipped for 12-24 hours and made no progress at all They were sticking to the membrane. The other eggs died sometime between the 15th day and hatch day. They were shrink wrapped but fully developed chicks that shouldn't have died. Two of them that died had never absorbed the yolk, probably died before they did. I had these eggs in the incuview incubator. The humidity gauge on the thing and the temperature gauge was wrong and we knew that from the start, using the extect humidity alert 11. Which we knew was pretty much accurate because we tested it over and over. We had so much trouble getting the humidity to hold on the incubator, but kept it the first 18 days around 40 to 45 percent. When i went on lockdown, i went between 60 to 70 percent. We had 1 chick zip himself out. The others we had to literally wait till all the blood vessels were empty and then pic them out. I am not sure what I did but those chicks shouldn't have died. The 1 that hatched himself is great, the 6 we helped are great. I'm lost as why. Any help or advice would be great, wonderful. Thanks so much in advance.

 

[cookiesdaddy]

I have the same question and hope you get some responses. I just finished hatching a batch of quails. In the end I had 4 eggs with fully developed chicks but never pipped. The humidity was very good so I know it's not shrink wrap. One of them moved back and forth but could never pipped. After the "autopsy" I have a theory: the chicks were large and were in the wrong position, with beak never near the airsack to pip through. If this is the case, what would have caused this and how to prevent? Does it have to do with the way I turned my eggs?

 

[sixbabychicks14]

My chicks were turned right, they just never even pipped the inside membrane. I have an egg turner on this incubator that rolls the eggs back and forth. As long as the large end of the egg is higher than the pointy end the egg is okay. You can lay them down or stand them on end or whatever, but the large end needs to be slightly higher than the other. I have no idea what went wrong here, unless it was the humidity being unstable. I just can't stand to see the little thing in there dead when it was clearly ready to be born.

 

[cookiesdaddy]

Hmm ... I built my egg turner that just roll the eggs back and forth randomly. It does that 3 times a day, 30 minutes each time. At times pointy ends are up. Maybe that's my problem, that the chicks get confused not knowing which side is up. May have to redesign my turner but that's a lot of work now!