Losing a lot of chicks with this hatch..Help!

[Diane Anderson]

Hello! This is our second time hatching chicks. The first time, we had one that pipped but didn't hatch. This time. 11 out of 12 hatched with no issues. 6 over night Sunday into Monday, then 5 hatched by the afternoon yesterday (Monday). We pulled the first 6 because they were dry and there wasn't enough room in the incubator for all of them and they were stampeding the newer chicks. This morning, the 5 remaining in the incubator were soaking wet and 3 of them were laying, nearly lifeless. We took them out, gave them water and had them under a heat lamp. They have since died. One thing I noticed was the incubator had some mildew looking spots on the Styrofoam in the bottom of it which was soaking wet. Anyone know what went wrong or what we should do differently next time?

 

[jsr5]

I'm not 100percent as I'm pretty new myself I do know I have a pre warmed brooder ready on hatch day and i don't leave my chicks in the incubator more than about 12 hours by then they should be dry and fluffed . I'm not sure how much time elapsed but if the other five were still wet I'd think incubator either malfunctioned or was abruptly moved to allow water to slosh. That is in my limited experience with my cheap chinese incubator. Hopefully someone else will chime in. Oh and I really can't tell you how to go about sanitizing the syrofoam but it is definitely gonna need to be sterilized before atttempting any more hatches. Not sure if it was bad enough to kill chicks I know their delicate breathing apparatus could very likely be susceptible to the mold bloom though.