HELP! STARTED LOCKDOWN AT DAY 15!

[Ni-chicks]

This incubation has gone flawlessly, until now!! I have done plenty of incubations in the past but i must have pregnancy brain or something!

Day 1-(supposedly)18 , kept humidity and temp SUPER consistent. I have an automatic egg turner so everythjng looked great!

Day (supposed) 18- I removed egg turner, cranked up humidity, and went into lockdown.

Well they are supposed to hatch today and no signs of nothing!!!! I should mention I only candled super early on and then never again..

I counted back the days and realized the auto countdown in the incubator was WRONG! Today is actually day 18 and not day 21. So I started lockdown 3 days early!!

Do I just turn them and keep settings the same? Do I dry them up, turn them, and try lockdown again tomorrow? Idk what to do…

 

[Ridgerunner]

They really haven't needed turning since Day 14 or so. You get the benefits of turning before that. It doesn't hurt to turn them after day 14, it's just not necessary. So no harm done with stopping turning.

The question is how much moisture did they lose? They need to lose a certain amount but not too much. Mother nature was kind to us and gave a pretty wide gap as to how much moisture they can lose and still hatch. I have no idea where your eggs stand with that. The reason you up the humidity is so the eggs don't lose too much moisture when they external pip and become shrink wrapped.

If you dry them up now and raise the humidity tomorrow they will lose a bit more humidity than if you keep the humidity level up from now on. That's probably not enough to make any difference but I'd probably try that. I'd be more worried about the potential for shrink wrap than if they did not lose enough moisture.

 

[Huntmaster]

Have you candled the eggs? How do the air cells look?

 

[Ni-chicks]

They really haven't needed turning since Day 14 or so. You get the benefits of turning before that. It doesn't hurt to turn them after day 14, it's just not necessary. So no harm done with stopping turning.

The question is how much moisture did they lose? They need to lose a certain amount but not too much. Mother nature was kind to us and gave a pretty wide gap as to how much moisture they can lose and still hatch. I have no idea where your eggs stand with that. The reason you up the humidity is so the eggs don't lose too much moisture when they external pip and become shrink wrapped.

If you dry them up now and raise the humidity tomorrow they will lose a bit more humidity than if you keep the humidity level up from now on. That's probably not enough to make any difference but I'd probably try that. I'd be more worried about the potential for shrink wrap than if they did not lose enough moisture.

So I had them at 40-55% humidity from days 1-15!

Then I put them on lockdown and increased humidity to around 70% from 15-18. Now I have three days left and unsure the route I should go for my remaining 3 days.

 

[mcdze]

itl be alright, id just keep it steady as she goes .. opening the bator, and changing things now will do more harm than good .. personally, i wouldnt let it run dry

 

[Ni-chicks]

Have you candled the eggs? How do the air cells look?

I candled them early on around day 10! I thought all looked pretty healthy with no red rings of death. I decided to just leave them be. Now that I messed the days up and I'm actually only day 18 (thought I was day 21)

 

[Ni-chicks]

itl be alright, id just keep it steady as she goes .. opening the bator, and changing things now will do more harm than good .. personally, i wouldnt let it run dry

Thats honetsly kinda what I thought! Its just a 6 day lockdown instead of 3.. it should be fine

 

[beingmolded]

I am amazed how much I did not know until what I know doesn’t happen. I just found out I counted the days the egg was laid and not the days I installed the eggs in the incubator until they were not hatching. I am in this exact boat. Even with the timing and humidity ……. So please infor. Did they make it ???

 

[Susan Skylark]

A few extra days of higher humidity isn’t going to hurt anything! Don’t panic! I’ve actually intentionally done a 10 or 80 percent humidity hatch (quail), the whole incubation (save lockdown) with 100 percent hatch rates and no issues (don’t recommend either as routine!). A slightly larger or smaller air cell is unlikely to cause issues in most chicks, better too long lockdown than too short!

 

[beingmolded]

Thank you for responding. I candled them and they all have strong veins and movement. But my next concern is….

will the high humidity for so long cause the chick to be too large to move to pip ?

Oh to the learn of this all and from my mistakes