Late hatching and drying out

[ebonie]

Hi all,
I'm getting so frustrated. I keep my hatcher around 99 and my humidity between 74-65% during hatching. I also keep a small dish in with tubing to add water when humidity goes down but still above 65% I have been having some eggs zip and they seem to dry out and die how can this be when my humidity is kept high? These are usually the last egge to hatch and I end up helping the poor chick out, if I don't they get dried/stuck and die.

Any idea as to why this is happening its been my last few batches......I use the hova bator 1588 for hatching.
Thanks!

 

[cheryl026]

Hi there, sorry to hear about your chicks

i don't know why that is happening... do you turn the eggs by hand or have an egg turner? My first hatch was in February... all hatched!! And this hatch i started near the end of April with about 10 eggs, while i also had a broody hen sitting on 8 eggs, she decided to quit when they had another week left, so i had to move them in the incubator

So I took out the egg turner and decided my best bet was to mark them, then turn by hand, which caused the humidty to change and escape heat, So i lost 3 chicks because of it.

So to help you, I thinks it depends on how often you are opening the lid, and checking on them and the geographic area you live in as well. ( i live on vancouver island where it is fairly humid, and I still have problems with humidty.) If you see that they pipped through and the inner membrane is white and after waiting 24 hours, I would help them a bit by taking small pieces of the outershell every few hours. I have also wrapped the egg in a warm wet paper towel ( not covering the air sac area) and that has worked with one of my chicks. My mom has chickens as well, and she lives in the okanogan ( Southern part of BC- very dry climate) and she mist her eggs with a water spray bottle and most of her eggs hatch!

Good Luck! I hope I helped you!

 

[ebonie]

Thanks for the help, once they are in lockdown I don't open till I'm sure they are done..........that's when I end up helping the last one if its not too late.
I used an auto turner and we are dry here in Idaho. That being said this is happening to shipped eggs.

 

[matlock585]

I've experience the exact same thing several times. And mine always seem to be last few that hatch. The humidity is most likely to blame. The way I understand it is too low lets them dry out and too high makes them get rubbery. I've always fought with the increased humidity making condensation form on my glass and I can't see inside to monitor the pips. I have some now on day 14. I think this time I'm going to put an anti fog on the inside of the glass and take out the chicks just as soon as they dry off. I think the first ones that hatch roll the others and contributes to this problem. I'm also going to worry more with regulating the humidity during hatching, and keep it closer to the upper 60's.