I had 19 eggs that were at day 19 yesterday afternoon. 1 pipped and zipped with no problem. Another pipped and zipped until it came to a small part on the shell where I had to out a light coating of candle wax last week when moving the eggs to the hatcher....unfortunately both of my incubators are styrofoam and I can't seem to master this humidity issue. I live in S. Georgia so we have plenty of natural humidity. I did the dry hatch method for 1-18 days then raised it to 65/75 for the last three days. The chick that pipped and zipped but couldn't get out was struggling for 3/4 hours. The membrane was drying out and sticking to him. I stuck a piece of fish tank tubing with a syringe through the vent hole and squirted a little warm water on the dried membrane. Didn't help. I finally very quickly opened the bator and took the chick out. I peeled away the part of the waxed egg that was stuck, moistened the membrane with warm wet paper towel and put him back in. He hatched almost immediately . Chick number three pipped and zipped with no issues except he has aot of little pieces of egg shell stuck to him. I moved the first two hatchers to the brooder before the third one hatched because they were unfortunately running all over the place and have now moved the probe that measures temp and humidity to the floor of the bator instead of at egg level. It's an LG 9300 digital incubator. My question is this....what causes the chicks to be so sticky? I have a few more pipping this morning but not so sure my hatch will be as successful as I had hoped for. I had 19 eggs in there. Looks like I may be lucky to get five chicks unless more pip later today .
I actually have 3 hygrometers and all of them say something different! I didn't open the incubator while there were any pipped eggs so hopefully nobody is shrink wrapped in there. It's so humid where I live and I may never master the issues of hatching and good humidity. I did dry incubation and still had humidity at an average of 50 percent . Guess I need a dehumidifier.
