Hatching Silkies, well.....Trying to hatch Silkies

[SundownWaterfowl]

Try bumping humidity up to 65-70% for the last 3 days


ETA: The first 18 days I do dry incubation also. It stays around 20% or so with no water added. The only thing I do is mist the eggs down a couple times during incubation with disinfectant.

 

[Ceinwyn]

Adding animal protein and brewer's yeast to their diet may help as well.

 

[renovationmom]

Quote:
Thank You, I will bring the humidity up, I think this may be the solution, Thanks again for the help.

 

[renovationmom]

Quote:
Thank You, I will try this. Is the brewers yeast something I buy as a powder and sprinkle in their food?

 

[9farmgirl9]

The same thing happens to me 2!!! Except mines like 80 eggs and 3 0r 4 will live. It is very frustrating! I will try it again.

 

[zebserema]

this happened to me because of power outage and low humidity as for the exact percent humidity it doest matter just keep it damp i had 3 fully formed chickes that died in their shell because they got to cold the power went off for 8 hours and because of that they all hatched way early like on day 17 or 18

they are all doing fine and luckily my one tiny serema egg hatched

try actually lowering the temp for the last 3 days to about 99 degrese and getting it as humid as possible

 

[TerryQui]

I lost a bunch last week from drowning and too high humidity at the end and during the time.

This info was given to me and it was fantastic. I am about to set silkies and plan to follow all of this info. I washed my bator with white vinegar two days ago. It is on and runing at almost 101 degrees.

I do dry incubation. Here's an article. https://www.backyardchickens.com/LC-DryIncubation.html If I keep the humidity up around 40% or so where the manual tells me too, the eggs don't lose enough moisture and the air sacs don't get large enough and I get really poor hatch rates.

When you receive shipped eggs your supposed to let them "rest" for around 12-24 hours. I put them in and let them "rest" 2-3 days. Just gives them extra time to rest.​

 

[Ceinwyn]

Quote:
Thank You, I will try this. Is the brewers yeast something I buy as a powder and sprinkle in their food?

Yup you can mix some in with their food.
It provides much needed vitamin B complex and riboflavin which are major causes of dead in shell chicks.

 

[renovationmom]

Thank you so much everyone for your help. I am thankful for any help anyone can offer.

I have to wonder, how do the hens make it look so easy! If my girls could hatch all the eggs they are laying, without me worring they are getting too thin, I would just let them hatch, they know best!

Which brings me another question, how many eggs can a silkie hatch at one time?

 

[zebserema]

a silkie can easily set 6 to 7 eggs a larger bird full sized can set 9 to 10