HELP Sticky chicks hatching and dying!!

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi ChickenLittleMe

Sorry to hear about you losing your chicks, although incubating is a fantastic experience it also has its downsides You have been given some great advice form the above posters. I too agree that it is a humidity problem as to why the chicks are hatching with goo (albumen) still on them and not fluffing up. Humidty and temperature are key factors in incubating and and need to be at an optimum level throughout incubation. My first incubator was a cheap Chinese one and my first hatch was a total bust not one hatched or even pipped. I went and purchased a thermometer and hygrometer and found I had cooked and drown them with how much water I had in. I didn't make the same mistake again and even when I got my Brinsea I still checked it was running correctly.

This is a nice article on incubation problems https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/egg-failure-to-hatch-diagnosing-incubation-problems I hope you find it of some help.
Wishing you the very best of luck with your new set of eggs and enjoy your five babies while they are still small they grow so quick!!

 

[DanEP]

Evan with a new hydrometer things can still be off. If you do a search on this forum you can find instructions on calibrating a hydrometer. It's worth doing, at least then you know for sure where your humidity is.
I seem to have better hatches with dry hatching too. I live in w Ky and humidity can be real high. My last hatch was during a rainy period and I took all the water out of the incubator and still was running about 35% which is where I like it.You may have to make adjustments during the incubation depending on what the weather is like but it,s not that hard and you'll get the hang of it.Don't worry about this hatch we have all learned the hard way.As long as you've learned from this hatch it was a good hatch. It sounds like you saved 5 chicks under tough conditions so that's not bad.
Good luck with your next batch

 

[AmyLynn2374]

You all are amazing thank you so much!! You are right I have to consider that there is a learning curve! I'm really hoping by having a hydrometer, another internal thermometer. I'll try hatching as long as my humity stays above 25 & I'll candle the eggs & do the line drawing. Thank you thank you for all the info!! I feel less horrible (still sad) that im not the only person in the world that this has happened too! My 5 little chicks are less stickum& fluffing out! They are doing excellent in the brooder!! I'm getting my new eggs friday from the best guy in town so hopefully by March 1st I'll have great news to share and im sure I'll have questions along the way!! Thank you again for your time!!

Glad to hear teh other 5 are doing well! Crossing my fingers for your second hatch and any questions, just ask away. Good luck!

 

[Joanie1975]

It does sound as though your humidity was high. Are you trusting just the gages on the bator to monitor humidity and temp? If si, don't. They are known to be wrong often. My recommendation:get two new thermometers and a hygrometer. Check the thermometers to see if they are accurate. Personally, I prefer the dry incubation. I do not use water in the bator the first 17 days. At lockdown/hatch I up my humidity to 75%. Now, here's the thing and the key to knowing if your humidity needs to be adjusted. The air cells! The reason we control humisity is so that the eggs loose the proper moisture. Unless you are going to weigh them, the best way to monitor this is by monitoring your egg's air cells. Using one of the egg pictorials you can compare your air cells to that and know if they are growing at the right rate. If they look too big, then you know you need more humidity because the egg is loosing too much moisture. If the air cell isn't big enough, you know that your humidity is too high and needs to be lowered so the egg can loose more moisture.

This is a graph of where they should be at key gestation dates.

Forced air incubators should average 99.5 degrees F.

Another thing I suggest is getting some sav a chick for the water for the first couple days. The TSC stores carry it and I imagine that a lot of feed stores would as well. You want the electrolyte version not the probiotics.
You can use some warm water to try to moisten and remove some of the stickness. Just don't let the chick get chilled.
There's always a possibility it is something else, but to me with them being sticky and fluid at the beak sounds like high humidity.
I hope you have much better luck with teh next hatch and sorry to hear you've lost so many.

I should clarify that dry hatch is not totally dry. You do not want no humidity. My bator holds 40% w/o water. You want to keep the humidity above 20/25% even with a dry hatch.

I am reading to make sure everything is right in my bator. I had a chick hatch yesterday and I am waiting on a second one. Could you tell me what humidity your incubator reads on a dry hatch please? I live in south east Texas and it’s humid here. Thank you