Help! Peeping 12+ hours in shell Pipped Wiggling but no Zipping!

[Curnow]

Oh and how were the air cells throughout incubation, were they about the right size? I've read about a lot of peoples hatches being ruined by high humidity, a lot of incubator instructions list a humidity that is too high. I know with my hatches if I used the recommended 50% I would have terrible hatches, around 25-35% for the first 18 days works so much better for me ( it really depends on where you live and time of year, TN is where I live and its pretty humid so a low humidity is better for me).

If the weather was cold when you incubated last time maybe the humidity in your house was lower than it would be now in spring so what worked before didn't work now??? I'm just throwing out guesses though, I've heard the best thing to do is weigh the eggs and make sure they lose enough weight, I've never done that though and just track the air cell at days 7, 14, and 18 and adjust my humidity if they are looking too big or small.

Yes, I think now it was a humidity problem. Last hatch was done in cold weather with wood stove and furnace running. It was successful.

This hatch was warmer weather and high humidity in the house. I followed the instructions on the incubator itself. I eggtopsied most of the unhatched eggs and they all appear to have died shortly after lockdown. No internal pips, but fully formed beautiful dead chicks with full yolk sack. They didn't appear to even have begun to absorb the yolk.

We are living in the house we are building and the air conditioner won't be installed till next week so my inside humidity is running high. It has been raining a lot and the ground is like a big sponge! We've had windows open so that just adds to interior humidity as well I'm sure.

I'm thinking of moving 3 sultans to the house where I have a beautiful rooster that was bloodied in a fight. He has perfect temperament! I don't quite understand the genetics of breeding to dominant white, but hoping I can somehow create those BEAUTIFUL Azeri type Sultan chickens. They are just stunning! My few Sultans have numerous qualities I adore. I would like to eventually create a larger fowl that is a feather legged, large crested chicken. Some color would be a nice feature. I am breeding for myself.

Thank you to everyone for your very quick replies and assistance!

 

[LynnaePB]

I'm so sorry about your babies dying at lockdown, I'm glad you were able to pinpoint it is probably a humidity issue, hopefully your next hatch will be much much better!

I really wish incubator instructions would mention that different places and climates can affect the optimum humidity needed and maybe include the air cell diagram that shows good loss at 7, 14, and 18 days. I think it might save a lot of heart break for those newer to incubating.

Your breeding project sounds really interesting, a larger feather legged crested chicken sounds beautiful. I'd never heard of Azeri type sultans before so I had to look them up, they do look lovely, so many interesting colors! Good luck with your breeding project, it sounds like a lot of fun!