help, my baby chicks hatched and died

[berrycreekgal]

Hi everyone,
I am new to this forum and hope someone can give me insight on what I did wrong with my chicks. I have an Asil chicken that was rescued from the suburbs in someone's backyard. After a painful integration period, she joined my rooster and 2 Ocelots, a Wyandotte and a big silver Brahma. The Asil is very territorial and also is the only chicken we have that has gone broody. She sat on 8 eggs, barely covering them. THe first time she went broody, a couple of eggs hatched and she killed the babies.
So this time, we pulled the eggs around the time we thought they should hatch. They were under a light for 2 days and this morning there was a chick, out of the egg and still wet. I moved her and the second egg with a peck hole to a light inside where we could watch them. The first chick dried and fluffed and moved around a bit. Then she closed her eyes and laydown and died about 30 minutes later. During this the second chicken was chirping and had its beak out and part of body. After a few minutes it also stopped moving so I peeled the shell off and rubbed it's body but it had died. Did I overheat them? The one in the shell never actually made it out onits own, but the first one looked good. Anybody have any ideas on what happened so I can avoid it the next time? Thanks.

 

[M@M@2four]

Hello! They can't just be under a light to hatch--they need humidity--which is very important when hatching--they very well may have, "cooked" or over-heated while trying to hatch under the light.

 

[M@M@2four]

Sorry...and fogot to add,

Sorry you had such a bad experience with the hatched eggs.

 

[highcountrychickens]

I'm so sorry this happened -how heartbreaking! There are all sorts of things you could attribute this to - I'd recommend looking through the posts and information threads here about incubating and hatching eggs. Someone else will surely post explaining a lot of it, but you will be able to find a lot of answers if they don't.

 

[berrycreekgal]

Thanks for your thoughts.

We were so thrilled and now sad. I guess an incubator deals with the humidity issue. It sure would be nice to let it happen naturally with the momma hen. She has a nasty disposition and apparently does not have the mothering part down, just the broody part. The first egg did hatch despite my sabotaging it with the light. Is there something else I should have done once it was hatched?
Also, can I post pix on this forum? Although now they are sad pix for me since they died, the pictures are pretty cool.

 

[walkswithdog]

Temperatures for successful hatching have a safe range. Above that range and the ones in the eggs will die. Chicks that are dried and being "brooded" are placed in brooders.

The temp in the brooder should be a steady 95 at one end of the brooder. The brooder must be large enough for a chick to go to a cooler area if it feels it must.

Without a thermometer in both an incubator and a brooder, it is very easy to kill chicks.

Incubation requires a certain temperature range and a certain humidity range. At the top of this forum, there is a "sticky" an entire thread devoted to "Read Me's on HATCHING". READ all of it, follow every link, read every page LINKED to the pages, and you'll have a good idea of what works, what doesn't, and why.

Even with a lightbulb - depending on wattage/size of container/ventilation, your temps could have been too low or too high. Both kill chicks.

 

[itsallnew]

I'm new first time and we've had 2 out of 4 die so far the other is not doing well. We started with 12. The others in the box all have holes but have not had much movement. We got the eggs at day 19. They are hyline