HELP! Have they lost enough moisture?!?!? EDIT: pics added!!!

I'm not an expert but comparing yours to the how to candle pics that are stickied yours look like they could be 15-16 days. I would try 35% and tomorrow I would check and make sure they aren't losing too much. And the next day. I'm a candling addict and as long as my incubator keeps and maintains my temp and humidity, and I wash my hands, I'm not hurting my babies. Mark your aircells to make sure and see progress. Believe me when I say I KNOW how bad it sucks to have zero hatches.
sad.png


My hatch history is this: My 1st hatch with a still air was 15 eggs 3 hatched. Next hatch I tried the dry hatch and I think I was too dry I believe hatch #2 was 20+ eggs 0 hatched. My 3rd hatch was ?17 eggs and 1 hatched and I was using the 50% and I had not calibrated my thermometers or hygrometers and lockdown on day 18.

Hatch #4 15 eggs and 10 hatched. I got an analog hygrometer for a humidor and my WalMart digital hyrometer when calibrated by the salt are 6 and the other 8 too low. In the incubator they run 12 and the other 15 too low but I still use them too see if there are any spikes in temp or humidity. I also found out I was miscalculating my hatch day wrong, I was 1 day early. I candle every day even in lockdown as long as nobody was in the middle of zipping. Another wrong thing I did was when I put my fan in, it was blowing air on my eggs, now I have my fan angled where it points upward toward my bulb and the air is heated then circulated. I lay my eggs on their sides and turn them 3-7 times per day. I lay them on a layer of batting that is used for making potholders shiny side up. I stopped turning at day 18 large side of aircell facing up. If there is anything else I can think of or if you ahve any questions let me know but this is what helped me improve my hatch rate.
 
since this is my first time i have asked a lot about humidity and everyones suggesting that it is between 35-45%. i have been trying to keep mine at 40 but sometimes it drops lower. i will be candling again soon as the tester egg i put in the bator seems to be fertile. today will be day 5 for that egg. its shell is so dark i cant really see anything but outlines
sad.png


oh yea since most people say they do dry hatches and have good out comes (not for everyone though) their humidity stays around the 35% range until lockdown when they raise to 65-70%
again only what i have read on other threads including mine
 
Last edited:
Ok I just had a lightbulb moment!!! Chicks "drown" because PEOPLE put them in lockdown before they lose the correct amt. of fluid. So I was having poor results because I put them in lockdown possibly 2 days too soon. My hatch #3 had 9 chicks alive in lockdown and they all died probably NOT because of 50% humidity through the incubation BUT because I put them in lockdown too soon and their system overloaded and they did not absorb they yolks and drowned. If I had waited until they internally pipped and watched and waited for the external pip before raising the humidity they might have lived? Hmmm I will never know for sure.

Make sense??
hu.gif
 
Quote:
Which pic do you see yolk in? Just curious because I missed that. I candles mine today and they are changing dramatically each day!
 
Quote:
Really should wait to up the humidity on the first external pip. Keep an eye on the others to know when to intervene. Here's the thread about that. I know more confusion! It was that way for me. I had to read his threads over and over and make notes and pm him with questions or post questions on his threads. This thread is about geese or ducks so that is where I was confused but his recent thread helped clear some of it up.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=491013

Another thread with great hatching advice and when to intervene or not

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=472294

There are more and they are all stickied if you go to pete55 BYC page

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=80310
 
Quote:
Your line of thought is logical and sensible, but IMO not quite correct. If your chicks are drowning, it's not because you're putting them in lockdown too soon, it's because your humidity days 1-18 has been too high. Adjust your humidity downwards, candle or weigh to check on moisture loss, get your eggs to a 13% weight loss by day 18, and you can safely put them into lockdown and they'll be fine.

Holding off on lockdown is a trick you pull when your humidity has been too high and you want to do all that you can to get your chicks to hatch, it's not something you should be doing with every incubation. If you have to do it with every incubation, that's a clear sign that your humidity has been too high, and the easiest and best solution is to lower it, not to muck about with delaying lockdown...
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom