Incubating Golden and Silver Sebrights

[cabumblebee]

Why is it so dang hard to keep Golden and Silver Sebrights alive to hatch??? I have been breeding now for two years and I have never had a good hatch! It is very frustrating... Any help or tips?? I have heard that it is a hard breed to deal with!!

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I just had a 100% hatch of some Golden's, but I had a broody sit on them until day 20. What has been going wrong?

 

[cabumblebee]

Im not really sure. The last incubation had around 15 live chicks at day 18 and by day 21 only 1 had made it. I get this over and over. I may try using broody hens to do the job maybe I will get a better outcome. This was started with 40 eggs!!! The previous started with 40 eggs and ended with 6 live hatch.
The temp is good and so is the humidity so I really don't know why it happens. I had the same results last year.
Kinda frustrating!!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Im not really sure. The last incubation had around 15 live chicks at day 18 and by day 21 only 1 had made it. I get this over and over. I may try using broody hens to do the job maybe I will get a better outcome. This was started with 40 eggs!!! The previous started with 40 eggs and ended with 6 live hatch.
The temp is good and so is the humidity so I really don't know why it happens. I had the same results last year.
Kinda frustrating!!

What are you using for humidity during incubation? Do you check the air cells at all?

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Have you been opening them up to try to figure out what went wrong?

 

[cabumblebee]

It just takes water in the bottom of the incubator.

 

[cabumblebee]

No I haven't opened any of them. Im not sure that I would know anything by opening them. What would I look for?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

The biggest causes of DIS after lockdown is temps and humidity. Temps, if low because they will still be alive and moving but developmentally behind and end up quitting before they finish and are ready to hatch. Humidity because if the humidity has been too high the first 17 days and the egg hasn't lost enough moisture the air cell will not grow and the chick will drown at hatch time in the excess fluid left in the egg. I would tend to think maybe the latter if you are not monitoring the humidity and the one that hatched hatched on time. I usually incubate at 30%, (and run a dry bator first 17 days) at least for my standard eggs. Now the silkie eggs I recieved I had to hatch at 40-45% because they lost moisture faster and the air cell grew rather quickly. Of course they were much smaller than my standards too.

I would highly suggest monitoring your humidity by both hygrometer and checking air cells to know that your eggs areloosing enough moisture. I use this method: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity

And if you can handle them, I would do eggtopsies and try to pinpoint the problem as well. If you have eggs with significant excess fluid in them, very wet or very sticky chicks, overly large chicks, that points to too high humidity. Multiple shrink wrapped chicks, where the membrane is dry and literally pulling the chick down against the egg, dry sticky chicks, is a sign of too low humidity. not fully developed chicks is a sign of temps being low and delayed development.

 

[cabumblebee]

This is so helpful! Thank you! I will take all of this into consideration and do the eggtopsies. Will also read the link that you have given!!
I'll keep you posted!!

 

[gimmie birdies]

I have one gold and one silver...