Help with humidity levels when hatching

[dorothyofoz5]

Hello,
My baby ducklings are starting to hatch. I had one pip yesterday in the morning. Then by the evening it was starting tomorrow unzip. By 9pm it seemed to be chirping like it was distressed and it kept wiggling around like it was trying to get out but wasn’t making any progress and the membrane was starting to dry out.
So I tried to chip off some of the shell and help it unzip, I got almost all the way around but then it started to bleed a little so I stopped and put it back in the incubator for a few hours. It just kept chirping nonstop and made no more progress hours later.
So then I cracked the rest of the egg the way around and tried to moisten the membranes and wrapped in a warm moist paper towel and put it back in the incubator. When I woke up in the morning, it was dead.
I am so heartbroken. I don’t want that to happen to my others.
So should I up my humidity to help their membranes not be so dry? My humidity is between 65 and 70 right now.
What else can I do? I really don’t want to help again. But how long should I give them before I feel like need to help?
I’m so sad. I’m a first timer so I have no clue what I’m doing.
Thank you everyone.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Wrapping damp paper towels around the egg can chill it. Water can absorb a lot of heat. The recommendation is to brush oil onto the membrane so that it stays stretchy and doesn't evaporate off.

Beyond that, it sounds like this one was just having a lot of trouble. I doubt you need to up the humidity, but do you have a second hydrometer? It might give you a second opinion of what your humidity actually is. I hope the rest of your hatch goes better.