[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]
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