Lockdown failure

[Whitechicks2020]

Hello,
I got a new incubator it’s a forced air incubator and we had one successful hatch but this last hatch with my Silkie eggs we went into lockdown with five healthy eggs and not one hatched. I bought a new hygrometer and thermometer to read temps better and I’m testing it before I do another batch. These are our own eggs and we don’t keep them but a couple days before placing in the incubator so they are fresh. We do a dry hatch and then add humidity at the end but I noticed the water was gone after day one of lock down so I added more and I’m afraid I may have drowned them. I’m still kinda new at this I do love a dry hatch they grow great it’s just the hatch I have trouble with! Any tips or tricks are more then welcomed!!

 

[Kellyjenny]

Please help @CluckNDoodle

 

[K0k0shka]

I don't think you can drown them that late in the game, especially not with a dry hatch. "Drowning" chicks refers to having had humidity too high throughout incubation, up until lockdown, and the egg not having lost enough moisture to allow for a good size air cell with enough air for the chick to breathe. If the egg had a good size air cell at the point of lockdown, having high humidity after won't be a big deal. The egg won't suck water back in to shrink the air cell and drown the chick. The chick will have enough air to breathe and won't drown. So I don't know what happened, but I certainly don't think you drowned them (if that helps).

 

[HeatherKellyB]

@MGG

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Can you give us some more details? What kind of incubator are you using? What was humidity at throughout incubation and at lockdown? Did you do an eggtopsy on any of the eggs that didn't hatch successfully?
What @K0k0shka is referring to is often called "sticky chicks", when the humidity is too high for the first 18 days and the chicks don't lose enough weight is can make it very difficult for the chicks to rotate properly in the shell to hatch properly but it doesn't sound like that's what you're dealing with.
Also chicks can drown from having the humidity excessively high at lockdown causing condensation to build up in the air cell and the chicks drowning in that built up fluid once internally pipping.
So if you did choose to open an egg and do an eggtopsy it may answer a lot of questions.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Since you mentioned your first hatch going well, I'm assuming a couple of things, A: The successful hatch was recent? and B: The hatch was also from the same flock?
One thing that also came to mind is that some incubators have an automatic shut off for the turner 3 days before hatch for lockdown, so if you don't reset the number of days to hatch once you start a new incubation period, the turner doesn't turn. Late quitters due to malposition are very common when eggs are not turned.

 

[Whitechicks2020]

Can you give us some more details? What kind of incubator are you using? What was humidity at throughout incubation and at lockdown? Did you do an eggtopsy on any of the eggs that didn't hatch successfully?
What @K0k0shka is referring to is often called "sticky chicks", when the humidity is too high for the first 18 days and the chicks don't lose enough weight is can make it very difficult for the chicks to rotate properly in the shell to hatch properly but it doesn't sound like that's what you're dealing with.
Also chicks can drown from having the humidity excessively high at lockdown causing condensation to build up in the air cell and the chicks drowning in that built up fluid once internally pipping.
So if you did choose to open an egg and do an eggtopsy it may answer a lot of questions.

My humidity stays around 20% for our dry hatch and the humidity for this hatch I wasn’t able to monitor that well because my hygrometer broke and the old one I was using I wasn’t sure was correct. The incubator we use is just a small one it’s the Jonelle auto turner. We hatched two of our three fertilized eggs with our last hatch but they were bigger eggs buffs. I didn’t do an eggtopsy because honestly I’m nervous to see the poor things lol but I will if we have anymore total losses because I don’t want to cause anymore babies harm.

 

[Whitechicks2020]

Since you mentioned your first hatch going well, I'm assuming a couple of things, A: The successful hatch was recent? and B: The hatch was also from the same flock?
One thing that also came to mind is that some incubators have an automatic shut off for the turner 3 days before hatch for lockdown, so if you don't reset the number of days to hatch once you start a new incubation period, the turner doesn't turn. Late quitters due to malposition are very common when eggs are not turned.

No timer on the turner

 

[Whitechicks2020]

I don't think you can drown them that late in the game, especially not with a dry hatch. "Drowning" chicks refers to having had humidity too high throughout incubation, up until lockdown, and the egg not having lost enough moisture to allow for a good size air cell with enough air for the chick to breathe. If the egg had a good size air cell at the point of lockdown, having high humidity after won't be a big deal. The egg won't suck water back in to shrink the air cell and drown the chick. The chick will have enough air to breathe and won't drown. So I don't know what happened, but I certainly don't think you drowned them (if that helps).

My hygrometer died on me and the water in my incubator kept drying up so I added very small amounts at a time but it just didn’t ever seem to get right.

 

[K0k0shka]

My hygrometer died on me and the water in my incubator kept drying up so I added very small amounts at a time but it just didn’t ever seem to get right.

Oh... well... in that case, you were flying blind and it could’ve been anything. Humidity too low, too high, the wrong amount at the wrong time. Next time get backup devices, and do an eggtopsy of any late losses.