I MESSED Up- Humidity Lock Down

[TamTam1]

I forgot to up the humidity at lock down! I remembered this morning, day 21. I immediately increased the humidity from 30% to 60%. No piping yet. Do I leave them alone and hope they are ok or should I help them by make a small whole and wetting the sack.

 

[Pearlescent]

I’ve never hatched chickens, but I hatched 2 Turkey poults this spring (they were a week late and their mama abandoned them after the rest hatched.) I didn’t know their hatch day, so I forgot to up the humidity entirely. They hatched during the night and the humidity couldn’t have been higher than 40%.

Unless chicken eggs are VERY humidity sensitive that I don’t know of, they’ll be fine cause they don’t actually need high humidity until they pip.

 

[Ridgerunner]

They have not pipped. No harm, no foul. You are OK.

The reason we up the humidity after 18 days of incubation is that some eggs can possibly hatch early. We want the higher humidity so when they external pip the membrane around the chick inside the eggshell does not dry out and shrink. That doesn't always happen anyway (see Pearlexcent's post) but getting the humidity up before external pip is good insurance.

Some eggs hatch early, some hatch late. Some even hatch on Day 21. If you have not seen an external pip yet you did no harm by not raising the humidity earlier.

Some people can't keep their hands off of the eggs. I find the more I interfere the more harm I do. I strongly suggest you do not poke holes in the eggs or even open the incubator for another couple of days unless you see some emergency in there. Give your eggs a chance before you interfere.

 

[Anon112]

Some people can't keep their hands off of the eggs. I find the more I interfere the more harm I do. I strongly suggest you do not poke holes in the eggs or even open the incubator for another couple of days unless you see some emergency in there. Give your eggs a chance before you interfere.

Exactly.

Being too "hands on" is exactly the type of mistake I have made many times when doing something new that's chicken related.

I've found that the more I back off, the better things tend to go. Poking holes in the eggs this soon could cause much more harm than good. (I don't know if you've seen that awful picture of the chick that someone opened its shell and most of the yolk sac is still there, but that photo single-handedly put me off "helping" chicks hatch unless it's clear it's the only choice).