Help!!!

[luvmychix2014]

Ok... so my sister was heading out of town when she realized that her chickens were starting to hatch...well at least 2 of them were. So she had me rush over grab the incubator and bring it to my house. Her incubator looks like a Styrofoam cooler and has a heating coil at the top and a place to add water for humidity. So I woke up this morning and both chicks that were breaking through the shell had died, read on line that where she had the temp was a little low so I raised it to 100* ...are the rest of the chicks going to be ok? What do I do? Any reason why they are dying???

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Ok... so my sister was heading out of town when she realized that her chickens were starting to hatch...well at least 2 of them were. So she had me rush over grab the incubator and bring it to my house. Her incubator looks like a Styrofoam cooler and has a heating coil at the top and a place to add water for humidity. So I woke up this morning and both chicks that were breaking through the shell had died, read on line that where she had the temp was a little low so I raised it to 100* ...are the rest of the chicks going to be ok? What do I do? Any reason why they are dying???

What is the humidity? Are the vent plugs out so that air is getting to the chicks?

 

[luvmychix2014]

It only has a temp gauge and not sure about vents...for some reason I can't upload a picture on here

 

[AmyLynn2374]

It only has a temp gauge and not sure about vents...for some reason I can't upload a picture on here

Without any known accurate instruments, I'd say to start with making sure the water wells are full and if you have a couple clean sponges wet them and stick them in there. Humidity is going to be an important factor. If there's any condensation, then you can cut back, but with the wells filled and a couple sponges you should be running a decent hatch humidity. If there are any red plugs on the top, those would need to come out. If it's a DIY cooler incubator then there should have been holes added for venting and air supply hopefully.

 

[luvmychix2014]

Ok, so after some inspection and conversation with my sister...there was red plugs in the tip along with other small holes...her step daughter (14 years old) put tape over where the red plugs came out so no dam air was getting to the chicks...I'm not happy!!! So I will be keeping the incubator here set at 101* water wells filled and air holes untaped!! I put 2 of my fertilized eggs in there this morning and will see how this goes...do you think the unhatvhed eggs she has had in there are still ok and will hatch soon???

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Ok, so after some inspection and conversation with my sister...there was red plugs in the tip along with other small holes...her step daughter (14 years old) put tape over where the red plugs came out so no dam air was getting to the chicks...I'm not happy!!! So I will be keeping the incubator here set at 101* water wells filled and air holes untaped!! I put 2 of my fertilized eggs in there this morning and will see how this goes...do you think the unhatvhed eggs she has had in there are still ok and will hatch soon???

There's always a chance.But if you have all the water wells filled for any length of time with the new eggs in there, chances are you are going to have too high humidity for them and they won't loose enough moisture. If it's just a couple days while the others hatch out, it's not that big of a deal, but you don't want them filled the entire incubation.