Help! Humidity advice for large detached air cells!

[iambebabeba]

Sorry for all the questions, if you can’t already tell - first time hatcher here...combined with all the complications of shipped eggs.

How did the hatch go?

 

[Mablethechicken]

How did the hatch go?

Hi! Sorry I should’ve posted an update. Really well! By day 18 all of the wonky air cells were crazy improved with much closer to normal shapes. All 5 that went into lockdown hatched with no issues and on time. Still can’t believe it! After a lot of research I ended up hatching them all upright since they were incubated that way for most of their time and closely monitored them during lockdown up ensure none were pipping at the wrong end. The babes are about 2 weeks old tomorrow. We’re in love. Still unsure about breed of the two mystery eggs but I have 2 EEs, a Maran (not exactly sure what exact type yet, she came light gray and is now shades of light and dark gray, and I have one that looks like maybe an australorp that came out of a pinkish light brown egg and the other is still pure yellow and came out of a tinted egg (I think it’s a rooster based on wing feathers). I posted a full recap on the April hatchalong thread. I’ll copy it and post it here so you can see!

 

[Mablethechicken]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/april-2020-hatch-a-long-all-are-welcome.1352789/page-171

Here’s where I posted my update with pictures!

 

[iambebabeba]

Hi! Sorry I should’ve posted an update. Really well! By day 18 all of the wonky air cells were crazy improved with much closer to normal shapes. All 5 that went into lockdown hatched with no issues and on time. Still can’t believe it! After a lot of research I ended up hatching them all upright since they were incubated that way for most of their time and closely monitored them during lockdown up ensure none were pipping at the wrong end. The babes are about 2 weeks old tomorrow. We’re in love. Still unsure about breed of the two mystery eggs but I have 2 EEs, a Maran (not exactly sure what exact type yet, she came light gray and is now shades of light and dark gray, and I have one that looks like maybe an australorp that came out of a pinkish light brown egg and the other is still pure yellow and came out of a tinted egg (I think it’s a rooster based on wing feathers). I posted a full recap on the April hatchalong thread. I’ll copy it and post it here so you can see!

That is awesome. There’s hope for me then . Thank you for the update

 

[amibpoe]

I am on day 14 of this problem. I did not however turn down the humidity. Should I do that now? I have no clue how to tell how large the air cell should be. If I should turn down humidity, how long and to what percent? I am hatching ducks so humidity is usually at 57ish.

 

[iambebabeba]

I am on day 14 of this problem. I did not however turn down the humidity. Should I do that now? I have no clue how to tell how large the air cell should be. If I should turn down humidity, how long and to what percent? I am hatching ducks so humidity is usually at 57ish.

I’m no expert but you would have to candle them to see how big the air cell is now. 57 is a little high for this stage usually but it really depends on how much moisture they have already lost. Hope this helps

 

[Mablethechicken]

I’m no expert but you would have to candle them to see how big the air cell is now. 57 is a little high for this stage usually but it really depends on how much moisture they have already lost. Hope this helps

Yes you’ll need to candle as @iambebabeba mentioned above. When I candled the air cells looked huge but I was taking into account the saddling and oblong shapes jutting our. The best advice I got was to look for the round/oval shape of the original air cell minus the saddling and go by that to judge air cell size.

I had chicks so I know it’s different than ducks but after all the reading I did I went with a drier incubation approach. Most of the generic info out there says 50% but I ran mine between 30-40% occasionally reaching up to 45% but not often. I chose this because based on what I read it seems that there is a much higher risk of losing them because of drowning during the pip due to not losing enough moisture vs. shrink wrapping because of losing too much. I know that neither one is good but I also read a lot of people being able to assist and fix the latter if needed. A lot of posts were about finding fully developed chicks or ducks during eggtopsies that internally pipped but never hatched. I’m not an expert and I know a lot of things can cause this but I think a lot of the time it’s drowning from too much moisture. Theyseem to have a much better chance of hatching with an air cell that’s a little too large vs one that’s too small.

I did raise it to closer to 50% on the couple days leading up to lockdown. For two reasons, the air cells looked plenty big enough so I knew they lost enough moisture and also to make it easier to quickly get up to 65%-70% i needed for hatching.

Good Luck!

there’s a lot on here about the benefits of dry(er) incubation if you search!

 

[Mablethechicken]

That is awesome. There’s hope for me then . Thank you for the update

Yes! There is! I’ve been actually thinking about posting a separate thread to share the story and give hope or at least encouragement to others with shipped eggs and detached air cells. I had no idea what I was doing and made my own incubator and still had a good hatch. There are so many posts with what went wrong and devastating stories of hatched that are a total loss but I think there’s a lot out there that went well that we don’t hear as much. After all, most people come here for help and if all goes well you don’t need help right?
If there was hope for me there is hope for anyone!

 

[Eggs_With_Legs]

Yes! There is! I’ve been actually thinking about posting a separate thread to share the story and give hope or at least encouragement to others with shipped eggs and detached air cells. I had no idea what I was doing and made my own incubator and still had a good hatch. There are so many posts with what went wrong and devastating stories of hatched that are a total loss but I think there’s a lot out there that went well that we don’t hear as much. After all, most people come here for help and if all goes well you don’t need help right?
If there was hope for me there is hope for anyone!

Hey there!
I'm going to be hatching out shipped Turkey eggs in about a week, and I would love to read anyhting you're willing to write about your thought process and actions when it came to the saddled eggs! I've hatched out Chicken eggs quite a few times, but never shipped ones. I really need these Turkies to have a good hatch rate. I would be ever so grateful to read about your experience!!
Cheers,
EWL

 

[Mablethechicken]

Hey there!
I'm going to be hatching out shipped Turkey eggs in about a week, and I would love to read anyhting you're willing to write about your thought process and actions when it came to the saddled eggs! I've hatched out Chicken eggs quite a few times, but never shipped ones. I really need these Turkies to have a good hatch rate. I would be ever so grateful to read about your experience!!
Cheers,
EWL

Hi there!
Wow Thank you, I’m super humbling that someone wants my advice. Again very new to this but I did a ton of research and went down a few black holes in the process digging for answers. At one point my husband thought I either fell asleep with my eyes open staring at my phone or that I’d been possessed. Haha the best advice I can give is that you read a lot and collect info from many different places. What I ended up deciding to do for my hatch was a combination of a lot of different helpful advice that I received. No one method is right or wrong and you need to decide for yourself.

Ok so here’s what I did:
When they arrived I set them big end up in an egg carton for about 16-18 hours at room temperature can’t remember exact hour. I read 12 hours which is what I intended but the 12 hour mark hit overnight so I set them in the incubator when I woke up the next morning.

I read later that 12 hours is really minimum so I probably should’ve done it for at least 24 or more.

When I set them in the incubator I laid them on their sides at 99 degrees at 40% humidity. I had decided on a drier incubation for the reasons listed above. Over the first several days the temp and humidity fluctuated between 98-101 and 30-42%. The fluctuations weren’t really intentional. My homemade incubator needed constant little adjustments as it was very influenced by the temp around it. I had it in my basement and it was generally about 60 degrees down there at night sometimes even cooler. The humidity didn’t fluctuate as much and when it did it was mostly from me opening the incubator. The great thing about using one so small is that the humidity would jump right back up really quickly because of the very small space. I candled at day 4 and saw that 5 of the 7 had visible veins. 1 showed nothing but a floating yoke and the other was the Maran egg and was too dark to tell. I put them all back in.
Day 8 was the day I noticed the crazy shaped and gigantic air cells and that’s when I panicked and started my research on detached air cells. Most of my research prior was about building my incubator and proper temp and humidity. I freaked out not just because of the shape but because of the size. I thought I had blown it with the low humidity and they wouldn’t have enough room to fully develop.
The most comforting and helpful advice I got was from @WVduckchick. You can read it on the first page of this thread. (Thank you again!) I was looking at the entire space as the air cell but in fact the saddling or outshoots aren’t necessarily full of air. They are just where the membrane has pulled away from the shell. The advice was to recandle and draw a pencil line around the entire air cell shape and a dotted line where the original or true air cell is so you can better judge the actual current size.
After doing this and seeing the air cells were actually normal size I decided not to raise the humidity and just stay the course.
I also learned at this point that I should’ve had them set upright with the large end up all along since they were shipped eggs. So I immediately corrected that and kept them that way through the remainder of the incubation. I used a cardboard egg carton with the sides cut down and bottoms cut out for circulation. I read both sides that this is necessary and also unnecessary (the cutting the egg carton I mean) but I decided to do it just to be safe.
I had an early quitter around day 10 with a visible blood ring and I took that one out.
I went through the remainder of the time until lockdown keeping the temp mostly between 98 and 101. Never above 101 but it did fall below 98 a couple times overnight on cooler nights when the basement temp dropped. I read that cooler is better than too warm and that they go through cooling periods naturally when the mother gets up to eat anyway. I kept the humidity between 30-40% until day 18.
The entire time the air cells continued to grow and remained crazy shaped. At day 18/19 a miraculous thing happened. I candled and the air cells looked almost totally normal. They were pretty big but had lost most of their extreme dips and saddles. I couldn’t believe it.
I raised the humidity to about 50% on day 17 because I wanted it to be easier to get to lockdown level humidity quicker. On day 18 I raised humidity to 69% and kept it between 65% to 72% until they hatched. I inserted a syringe into the side of the incubator into the water container so I didn’t have to open it to add water. Although given the amount of times I opened it to candle and make little adjustments to their set up, I’m not sure this was necessary.

Turning: there is varied advice about turning with shipped eggs. Some say don’t for the first few days while others say turning is the most crucial during the first several days for any egg. I read a lot of this after the fact. I turned them 3-5 times a day every day until day 15. I turned them when I had them laying down and upright. At day 15 I read this is a good time to stop because the chance of them getting stuck to one side of the egg has mostly passed and also it allows the air cell to further stabilize and reattach. I had them tilted with the lowest part of the air cell facing up. From then on any candling I did I made sure to do without turning the egg upside down. Meaning I put the candler upside down on top of the egg instead of sitting the egg on top of the candler.

The yolker still showed no development so I disposed of it and went into lockdown with 5 eggs all showing movement.
When I candled on day 18 to find my air cells almost normal I drew another line around them so I could see the highest and lowest points. That way when I set them i would know which way to tilt and I also in case I needed to assist or create a safety hole I wanted to ensure I knew what was air cell and what wasn’t.
They all pipped at the right end and hatched on their own between day 21 and early in the morning on day 22. I did make a safety hole for the Maran because I was worried that she had internally pipped (I could hear her chirping) and 24+ hours later still hadn’t externally pipped. But in retrospect I don’t think I needed to do this. She was my only Maran egg so I really wanted her to make it. She did most of the rest of the hatching on her own and probably would’ve been totally fine with no safety hole. Lesson learned. Have more patience and trust that they know what they are doing.

I also want to openly admit that I candled ALOT. i also opened the incubator during lockdown. I know, bad idea. But when the first two had pipped and the other 3 hadn’t I was worried they were malpositioned and/or had possibly pipped upside down.Or on the side that I couldn’t see. Whenever I needed to open it I took a spray bottle of warm water and sprayed it into the incubator to raise the humidity.

Expect the air cells to be misshapen and detached with shipped eggs but don’t think that because they are detached that it’s a death sentence. One thing I do wish I did among a thousand others is set the eggs sooner in the incubator and upright. You want the eggs to get to room temperature if they are cool when they arrive so putting them directly into a 100 degree incubator could be shocking but it doesn’t take that long for them to get to room temp. If I could do it again I would’ve let them sit big side up for 4 to 6 hours then set them in the incubator the same way. The air cells need to stabilize with shipped eggs but there’s no saying you can’t let them settle after shipment while also warming up in the incubator. If you live in a warm climate and they aren’t cool when they arrive you could probably set them upright in the incubator pretty much right away. What I read said that you don’t know how old the eggs are when they are shipped and since each day aged decreases viability it’s best to set them in the incubator right away.
Also I wasn’t as gentle as I could’ve been while unwrapping them. I didn’t know about detached air cells at that point. They were wrapped in bubbled wrap and shipped laying on their sides with lots of soft filler allowing minimal movement in the box. When I opened them I just rolled them out of the bubble wrap allowing them to spin as I unwrapped. Probably shouldn’t have done that. Best to hold the egg steady and move the wrapping not the egg.

I’ll post some pictures so you see just how bad my air cells were. I wish you the best of luck!