Lockdown - Pip already (Pic) UPDATE!! New Pics

[rhino533]

I lockdown my incubator last night at around 10pm and when I got up this morning at 6am there was already a pip in one of the eggs. Is this a bit early or it's normal to have chicks hatch/pip anytime after lockdown? This is my second hatch, the first hatch they pip on day 20 and 21.

****************************UPDATE***********************************


All 4 of my chicks hatched and are healthy. 2 hatched on Day 19 and 2 on Day 20 (today)

 

[crazyeggs]

I had chicks hatching at day 18 and 19. I think it had to do with my temps running a little high. I am still waiting on 7 more to hatch and nothing yet and it is day 19.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've had eggs do that. One was pipping at lockdown. There are different things that can cause eggs to hatch early. Usually the incubator temperature is a little high. Some other factors that I know of are heredity, low humidity during incubation, small eggs tend to hatch early, how long they were stored before you started incubation, or if you stored them with the temperature a little high before incubation. But usually it is the incubator running a little warm. I've had pretty decent hatches even when they were that early.

That is one big reason you go into lockdown on day 18. You need the humidity up once they pip and they can pip pretty early, as you noticed.

Good luck with your hatch.

 

[rhino533]

My hatch rate wasn't that great this time. I have 4 eggs where the chicks died probably around day 8-10. I have no idea why and 2 eggs were duds. So out of 10 eggs I hopefully should get 4 chicks. Not that great but at least I'm hatching a few. This is my second hatch and my first hatch I had some chicks die around the same days (day 8-10). Wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Hmmm. My first hatch I only had a hatch rate of 32% and this one is 40% (hopefully) maybe my next will be 50% and so on. Let’s hope!

 

[rhino533]

Quote:
I had the humidity in the incubator around 48% - 50% for the first 18days and now for lockdown it's around 66-70%. Do you think that's high enough? I read some people have the humidity at 30-40% for the first 18days and 55-60% for the lockdown. So many different opinions it's hard to know which one works the best. I live in a humid climate so it's really hard to get the humidity below 50%.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Different humidities work for different ones of us. That's why you get conflicting opinions. No one answer is right for all of us.

My last hatch had humidities pretty close to what you have. My lockdown was just a bit higher at 65%, though it jumped up quite a bit when they started hatching. I hatched 14 out of 16 that developed. For me, I'd try to raise the lockdown humidity a bit based on my history, but that might be the wrong advice for you.

 

[Griffin Nest]

sometimes they pip really early and hatch late.
i had one pip on day 18 but hatch on day 22. all the others hatched on day 20. the one that hatched on day 22 died because i helped it

 

[rhino533]

I edited and updated my original post and I forgot editing doesn't bring your post back to the top of the list so I wrote this.