Humidity and air sac

Bowen Mt Chicken

In the Brooder
8 Years
Jun 8, 2011
55
0
39
Bowen Mountain, NSW
Hi, just asking a question, we are on day 8-9 of incubation, I candled the eggs this arvo and there are chicks moving in them, but he air sac is quite large, it is taking up at least a 1/4 of the egg, will this hurt the chicks, we are in a dry spell here, and I am having to add water regularly to the incubator and finding that humidity is sometimes dropping to around 30% and once to 25%, the tempreture has stayed constant at 37.5 to 37.7 degrees celcius, but sits at 37.6 most of the time, the kids turned it off accidently once while I was at work and I now have it taped into the power board, but the chicks are still kicking in the eggs. I am having to add water at least 2 times a day to keep the humidity up to 40%, will this harm the chicks? This is our 2nd hatching, the first one was the opposite but is was raining all the time then and the natural air humidity was higher, those chicks survived, have never seen the air sac this big before, but can see movement of the chicks and they seen quite vigorous.
 
Hi there

An air cell occupying about a quarter of the egg at day 8/9 is rather large. However your eggs may be slightly porous which is also leading to increased moisture loss. The aim is to lose approx 15-16% weight loss during incubation and this is achieved by adjusting your humidity. However to achieve this you have to know the weight of the new laid egg. With experience you can learn to judge the weight by the appearence of the growing air cell. As your eggs appear to have lost sufficient weight you may now have to raise the humidity to prevent further moisture loss.

Here's a link to help you to a thread I did earlier which explains this in more detail
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https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=491013

Also there more links and information on incubation on our website;

http://oakgarthgeese.com

I hope it all helps you and good luck
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Pete
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Last edited:
OMG, thank you so much, that was so very helpful, my eggs look like the third candeling picture, the one on the left about the membrane coving 66%, I saw that photo and it was exactly what my eggs look like, thank you so much, am now more relieved.
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