In the middle of my hatch

[blucoondawg]

My eggs started pipping at 18 and a half days, I had 2 chicks the night of the 19 day and now am up to 9 chicks early day 20, they all seem to be doing ok but I have a few questions,

1. If an egg pips and after 24 hours or so the chick hasn't hatched is that bad? The pips were on day 18 anyways so that is early, can they survive in the shell for another day or 2 until they are able to hatch or will they die or need assistance before that?

2. With all this hatching in my incubator (Styrofoam forced air) it is very humid, the chicks are taking forever to dry, is this normal? Will it hurt anything?

3. The hatched chicks are running around and climbing on the unhatched eggs and have them mostly pushed over to one side of the incubator, some of them are pushed up against eachother, will this make it hard or impossible for a chick to push its way out of it's egg with others laying up against it?

I don't want to open the incubator until the hatch is over but I don't want to lose any potential hatches due to the chicks having the eggs all piled up on one side.

 

[midget_farms]

Great questions!

Lets see if I can take a shot at answering them.

1) a pip on day 18 is early - but they may still wait until day 20 to hatch - they wont starve or be thirsty - but there could be other things causing them to delay. You mentioned humidity. When they pip it begins the process of turning off the blood supply to the membrane - remember its acting as a lung - in high humidity it can take longer for this to dry out - but it shouldn't hurt them.

ALWAYS be aware that helping can cause as many issues as it resolves - break them out too early & they will bleed to death. Open the incubator & the sharp drop in humidity will cause the membrane to flash dry - shrink wrapping the chick in the shell. That said - if they are really struggling or already shrink wrapped - they wont get out on their own - just remember to stop all activity if they start to bleed.


2) It will take a day at least to dry - not a big deal - if it bugs you pull them out & put them in a brooder - they will fuzz up quick - but make sure it is warm enough - dont let a wet chick get a chill.

3) If the incubation was good (not too wet or dry) the eggs being piled up on each other will not make a difference. Remember chicks hatch in the wild with a chicken sitting on top of them. So they are OK to hatch with out the egg being in the open. My most recent hatch was too humid & several drowned after pip - they were rolled over by the hatched chicks & the excess water in the egg got em. My next hatch will be done in egg cartons - that will keep the air sac up high & if I have them too wet they will still do ok.

Hope this helps

 

[blucoondawg]

That is pretty much what I figured, I wasn't planning on opening up the incubator until 2 and a half days or so from the time of the first hatch which was last night so Friday morning or early afternoon, hopefully by then most will be hatched and it won't hurt anything to open the incubator and pull the chicks out. I don't really want to help any out of the shell as it could just be a problem chick that would have to be culled anyways but I don't know if I could help myself from trying if they were pipped and still alive, I won't help any for sure until at least day 22. My first pips occurred on day 18 and a half and 2 hatched by 19 it will be day 20 on the head at 7pm and I will already have half my brood hatched.

 

[blucoondawg]

3) If the incubation was good (not too wet or dry) the eggs being piled up on each other will not make a difference. Remember chicks hatch in the wild with a chicken sitting on top of them. So they are OK to hatch with out the egg being in the open. My most recent hatch was too humid & several drowned after pip - they were rolled over by the hatched chicks & the excess water in the egg got em. My next hatch will be done in egg cartons - that will keep the air sac up high & if I have them too wet they will still do ok.

Hope this helps

Ya I will maybe do the egg carton method next time as well, at least it will take the worry out of it that way. I did a dry hatch, no added water and humidity stayed at a minimum of 25% sometimes climbing up to 40ish, I had to open the lid a few times to let some of it out then I boosted it with water at day 18. When I candled at day 18 the air cells looked borderline as far as size, I thought they could have grown a little more but they weren't horrible, hopefully I don't get any drownings.

 

[czoellner]

When I do my hatchings, I let the newly hatched ones stay in the incubator until they are strong enough to hold their heads up and walk without falling down every 2 seconds!

The first time I hatched, I let them stay inside and bang around and bump into the eggs and roll them around and into each other as well. I let them stay for an entire 24 hours and they never dried off. I waited until that evening (about 30 hours after first hatch) and finally pulled out the babies and placed in a pre-heated brooder, they dried out and fluffed up quickly! They even seemed to get stronger faster and were very social!

The eggs that I left in there, I noticed some of them had been pipped but were now upside down due to the other chicks rolling them around. I quickly righted them, but 3 of them it was too late, they were already dead. 2 of them seemed weak, but I spritzed them all with a little warm water and in about an hour they seemed much stronger and happier. (yeah I know, how can you tell?) But, within the next hour they were wriggling their way out of that shell! I just didn't drown them, but wanted to make sure they weren't drying out and getting shrink wrapped in the shell either!

Now, I can't tell for sure if being pipped and upside down is what killed my other chicks, but now I take out the babies as soon as they seem strong enough and I haven't lost one at all!

I know mama knows best but we are only human... So, where I learned not to help out overly much, I have learned that just rolling and egg over can save a life!

 

[blucoondawg]

I don't know if pipping on the bottom side would matter, I have had some hatch all of a sudden where I didn't see a pip, because I assume it was on the bottom where the egg was laying, I would rather take them out and hope that gives the remaining eggs a better shot but I don't want to remove the top and have a sudden humidity issue, I think I will leave them at least until morning and see what happens.

Wouldn't a pip on the bottom be beneficial as far as drowning goes? Wouldn't it allow any extra liquid to run out of the shell rather than accumulate within and cause a drowning?

 

[czoellner]

I would like to say that it shouldn't effect anything either way. All I can say is what I experienced. So, I take out my chicks after around 1-2 hours. Quickly spritz the remaining eggs with warm water and close the lid! The chicks in the brooder get very social and excited when I put a new one in and they run over and all say hi! They investigate every nook and cranny of the box. I have a towel in the bottom to help absorb moisture, as well as some of the bedding they will be put into once they are 2 days old. So, they are used to it by then. I offer them food and water at all times, but they don't seem interested in it until the 2nd day. I know they can go longer without food/water, but I don't like to make them wait. They sure don't eat when they aren't hungry, so it doesn't matter for the newbies.

They all quiet down and snuggle up together and take a nap, then it starts all over again when another hatchling arrives. Plus, (maybe it's just me) but I love to pick them up carefully and inspect them. Do a mental checklist of all their body parts and they seem to be fine. They also get used to being handled a lot and later on are very docile.

Good Luck to you!