Hatching For the first time...

[hollstenius]

I Need some advice, read thread after thread about hatching and I've haven't been able to have a lockdown on my incubator. Need to fill up the water to keep the humidity up twice a day. Yesterday (day 20) I had five chickens hatch out of ten eggs, but today there is no signs of the other eggs to hatch. No pips, nothing. Shall I just be patient?

 

[Ridgerunner]

You will get two different opinions on this. Some pop the chicks out, some are more patient.

It’s possible you can shrink wrap a chick that has pipped but not zipped by opening the incubator and letting the humidity out. It happens but it really doesn’t happen that often. There are different factors involved, things like how long it is open, the humidity of the outside air when it is opened, how fast the incubator recovers humidity, is there a breeze, just different things. There is a risk but it’s a fairly low risk. Shrink wrap is when the membrane around the chick dries out and shrinks, trapping the chick so it cannot move to hatch.

The chicks absorb the yolk before hatch so they can live for three days or more without eating and drinking. There is no rush to get them out.

I personally leave the incubator closed until I’m sure the hatch is over unless I have a problem inside I need to deal with. If I need to though, I’ll open it and take care of the problem. There is a risk but the risk is very low. I make a judgment as to which is better. If no eggs have pipped there really isn’t any real risk. But occasionally I have one pip on the bottom.

There are people on this forum that don’t worry about this, they pop the incubator open all the time to take chicks out or do whatever they want to do.

I don’t know what your incubator looks like, but I use this to add water without opening the incubator. I got the syringe at Tractor Supply. The accordion straws were probably from Walmart. With a little effort I can refill all my trays. I go in through the vent hole up top.

I don’t know if your hatch is over or not. Sometimes my hatches are over within a day of the first one hatching. I’ve had some drag on for over two full days. One time I had a chick hatch way early. It was two full days before the next one even pipped. But the other 16 that hatched were all out the next morning, less than 12 hours later than that pip.

Some people would take the chicks out now especially since you are opening it to add water. I’d probably wait another day.

Can you post a photo and tell us about your incubator so maybe we can help you with why it is losing moisture so quickly. That should not be happening. We have all kinds of different incubators and do a lot of different things to manage humidity. The more you can tell us about that the more likely we can help you.

Welcome to the forum! Glad you found us.

 

[hollstenius]

[QUOTE="Ridgerunner, post: 18456945, member: 0"]You will get two different opinions on this. Some pop the chicks out, some are more patient.

It’s possible you can shrink wrap a chick that has pipped but not zipped by opening the incubator and letting the humidity out. It happens but it really doesn’t happen that often. There are different factors involved, things like how long it is open, the humidity of the outside air when it is opened, how fast the incubator recovers humidity, is there a breeze, just different things. There is a risk but it’s a fairly low risk. Shrink wrap is when the membrane around the chick dries out and shrinks, trapping the chick so it cannot move to hatch.

The chicks absorb the yolk before hatch so they can live for three days or more without eating and drinking. There is no rush to get them out.

I personally leave the incubator closed until I’m sure the hatch is over unless I have a problem inside I need to deal with. If I need to though, I’ll open it and take care of the problem. There is a risk but the risk is very low. I make a judgment as to which is better. If no eggs have pipped there really isn’t any real risk. But occasionally I have one pip on the bottom.

There are people on this forum that don’t worry about this, they pop the incubator open all the time to take chicks out or do whatever they want to do.

I don’t know what your incubator looks like, but I use this to add water without opening the incubator. I got the syringe at Tractor Supply. The accordion straws were probably from Walmart. With a little effort I can refill all my trays. I go in through the vent hole up top.

[IMG]https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/5800463/width/350/height/700

I don’t know if your hatch is over or not. Sometimes my hatches are over within a day of the first one hatching. I’ve had some drag on for over two full days. One time I had a chick hatch way early. It was two full days before the next one even pipped. But the other 16 that hatched were all out the next morning, less than 12 hours later than that pip.

Some people would take the chicks out now especially since you are opening it to add water. I’d probably wait another day.

Can you post a photo and tell us about your incubator so maybe we can help you with why it is losing moisture so quickly. That should not be happening. We have all kinds of different incubators and do a lot of different things to manage humidity. The more you can tell us about that the more likely we can help you.

Welcome to the forum! Glad you found us.[/QUOTE]
[/IMG]

 

[hollstenius]

So this is my incubator, it's quite big and has a fan, turns the eggs automatically. As five hatched over 24 hours ago I'm getting worried the other chicks might have died. I've got the tubs of water in a cardboard box since one of the hatched chicks fell in.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Good idea on the cardboard. I’m not familiar with that incubator. That looks kind of strange. It’s not well insulated at all.

Did it come with instructions on how to manage humidity? What’s the make and model of that, maybe the instructions are online. Mine has reservoirs in the bottom that are covered with wire mesh to keep the chicks out of the water.

It can be hard to know when the hatch is really over. I can’t add anything about that I haven’t already said.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

So this is my incubator, it's quite big and has a fan, turns the eggs automatically. As five hatched over 24 hours ago I'm getting worried the other chicks might have died. I've got the tubs of water in a cardboard box since one of the hatched chicks fell in.

Italian incubator, cool! I've never seen one like that. The Maino company has been in business since 1945, so they are an established company. The book on the shelf in the picture is Swedish, no? Can I ask what country you are in?

I would give them another 24 hours then candle. It's possible that the others won't hatch, usually everything that is going to hatch hatches within 48 hours of the first hatcher, but there's always exceptions. What altitude are you hatching in and what has your humidity been for the first 17 days?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Btw.

 

[Ridgerunner]

With that screen name I'm going to guess Denmark.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

With that screen name I'm going to guess Denmark.

Cool. I googled the screen name, but only found a meaning w/o nationality. Lol

 

[Ridgerunner]

Schleswig-Holstein is on the Danish-German border in Jutland. I’m guessing that the screen name is based on a local spelling. Pure guess based on that.

But I just googled it. Now I think it’s probably a family name. It’s always fun to guess.