Sorry about your losses. Hatching at altitude can be challenging especially if you are trying to hatch shipped eggs from lower elevation.I am simultaneously devastated and grateful to have found this thread. I never considered altitude before, and was wondering why I have been having such a high rate of mortality during lockdown. My babies must not be getting enough air!
I just lost my one precious wyandotte, AGAIN! This has happened the past 3 hatches; babies dying in lockdown! I am heartbroken! I have just made external pip holes for my 4 silkies and oiled their membranes. Hoping for them to be okay...
What is the altitude where you are? We're at like 4970 or something...I never considered it would be an issue as we're below a mile high, but yes, my shipped eggs have come from places like FL so basically sea-level?
I am right at a mile high elevation so 5280'. You will do far better by not buying shipped hatching eggs. I wasted a lot of money on them so now if I am looking for a specific bird, I buy day old ones. Even if they cost $30 or more per live chick it is much better than the $80 or more per chick I ended up paying when only a couple or less hatch from shipped eggs.
I am probably going to still try, but supplement with oxygen at lockdown. I am on oxygen so I can use my portable for the babies and we'll see if this helps. Apparently, some hatcheries have had success doing this. I can't buy live chicks because I can only keep a very small number per our town's rules. Even the places that say 3 minimum make me do 4 LF or 6 bantams, because of my zip code, and I can't keep that many in addition to the hens I already have. I don't mind selling babies from eggs I hatch, but would feel funny re-selling hatchery birds.
I have split orders with other people in order to meet minimums and I have also gone ahead and ordered the full minimum on my own and then sold the extras without any problems.Yeah I've learned this the hard way.
