March hatch along

[EllieBel]

How long has it been pipped w/o progress?

Is it still moving and chirping?

Still air or fan driven incubator?

What is the humidity?

Not sure how long it's been pipped, was pipped when we got home from work at 5 pm uk time. It's now coming up to 9pm. It's on,y a small crack at the moment. Can't hear chirping but there is another chick in there chirping. Havnt seen it move either.

Fan incubator. Don't know about the humidity x

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

Not sure how long it's been pipped, was pipped when we got home from work at 5 pm uk time. It's now coming up to 9pm. It's on,y a small crack at the moment. Can't hear chirping but there is another chick in there chirping. Havnt seen it move either.

Fan incubator. Don't know about the humidity x

It can take many hours between pipping and zipping. The chick still needs to absorb the yolk and rest. As I rule, I don't assist unless there are special circumstances, like a pip at the wrong end. If I do assist, I wait at least 12-18 hours after it has pipped. I know it's hard to sit on your hands, but hatching can take a long time.

Just keep in mind that a chick that isn't strong enough to hatch on its own is likely to have problems.

Good luck!

 

[Kassaundra]

Not sure how long it's been pipped, was pipped when we got home from work at 5 pm uk time. It's now coming up to 9pm. It's on,y a small crack at the moment. Can't hear chirping but there is another chick in there chirping. Havnt seen it move either.

Fan incubator. Don't know about the humidity x

I will tell you what my experience is w/ my hatching of chicken eggs. As a rule it goes against everything you will read on hatching chickens. It has worked for me and that is all I can say about it.

I have a brinsea forced air incubator and the first hatch I ever did in it I lost nearly all the chicks at hatch b/c I did my due diligence and read everything I could find on hatching and they all said lock down is sacred and never touch any hatching egg or help out in any way. And I listened. That first hatch and every hatch I have had since then my incubator or process or whatever you want to call it has a bad problem w/ shrink wrapping, both at internal and external pip. Every chick that died that first hatch (and that was most) were fully developed and shrink wrapped. So I thought on my next hatch that I couldn't do any worse if I helped out.

Fist off I get the humidity and keep it at about 70% at hatch time. I eagle eye the pipps, and if they stall much more then 8ish hours w/o progress I assume shrink wrapped and I assist. The first couple I helped I lost but then I learned from my mistakes and figured out what the problem was. I have helped out over 50 chicks and only lost the less then 5 total. They have grown to be healthy and productive birds.

I do start every lockdown w/ the idea it will be a true lock down and don't interfere until I know I will lose them if I don't.

I take the incubator into the bathroom (I have a heater in there) I keep the bator plugged in, turn on the heater and the hot water, get it hot and steamy in the closed bathroom. I have q-tips and warm water. I only take one egg out at a time and keep the bator running.

I gently remove the egg shell in small bits starting at the pip hole. You will quickly see if it was in fact shrink wrapped, as the first layer under the shell will be white, dry and stuck to the bird. There are 2 layers under the shell, the first one you will see will be the white hard layer, this layer has no blood vessels in it, you will need to dampen that layer w/ the warm wet q-tip and gently peel it away, making sure not to catch the layer just under, it will be moist, clear and has the blood vessels in it. Once you have peeled away maybe 1/3 or so of the white layer, your chick will be more free to move and kick it's way free. The moist under layer will have the hole from the pip, you want to gently work your warm moist q-tip between the chick and this layer, your wanting to ease it over the chick, like taking a sock off. If you need to tear at that layer at all you need to make sure you pick an area that does not have blood vessels (you will see them) if you do accidentally tear one and it starts to bleed, stop, place that chick back in the incubator and wait, it isn't for sure going to die, I have had several to live, just depends on how much bleeding before it stops. If I catch the shrink wrap before the chick gets weak I only remove enough so they can do the rest, but if I didn't see the pip or it was an internal pip and I waited to long and the chick is weak I will remove almost all and give it a chance to rest and recoop in the incubator.

This information is for eggs you are fairly certain are shrink wrapped. If they weren't ready and you do this you will likely kill them. If they aren't hatching b/c they are weak or have congenital problems from another reason they likely won't survive. A shrink wrapped chick will die 100% garunteed w/o help.

I do not believe in allowing the weak to survive in my flock, I do not treat illness or failure to thrive they are 100% culled (and I mean killed), this is not allowing the weak to hatch it is correcting a mechanical incubation problem (shrink wrapping).

On this hatch I have turned my temps down since I have read that is a major cause of shrink wrapping (other then humidity which I know is good). With the changes I hope to have a successful hatch w/o assisting, but I will be watchful and not hesitate to assist if I suspect shrink wrapping.

Also almost every time once you find a shrink wrapped egg all or nearly all are likely shrink wrapped, at least that is what I have found to be true.

 

[Selah]

I just set eggs Ash Wednesday March 5th as a warm-up to do the Easter Hatch-a-long. It doesn't leave me much time between the two, but the 'Bator has been in storage since last year, and I wanted to get it calibrated well... plus I only have three precious silky hens left (Coopers Hawks last fall).
I have one silly little silky hen who has been trying to brood, but she would gather everyone else's eggs beneath her, until there were too many for her to deal with, and she would abandon her efforts. I finally got wise to the situation, and marked the original clutch, so I could pull unmarked eggs from her horde.
At any rate, here is my current set...Silkies, Ameraucanas, and BuffOrpington/Red Sex Links crosses. My incubator is a homemade job with a wafer thermostat and repurposed computer fan. I have the eggs on a tilt table that I can tilt from the outside. I remove the tilt table at lockdown.

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

Kassaudra, your description of how to help is great! I wish someone had given me that advice when I first started hatching.

I've never had problems with shrink wrapping, so I can't speak to that problem. When I first started hatching, I used to help chicks a lot. It's really hard not to! You see the pip, and then nothing seems to happen, and you start to panic. In those early hatches, I lost chicks that I think might have made it on their own if I hadn't tried to intervene. Perhaps the yolk wasn't fully absorbed, or maybe I hit a vein. It's hard to know whether they would have made it or not. That's why now I wait so long to step in. You'd be amazed how long they can go between pip and zip. I've seen it take as long as 48 hours. But if a chick has the energy to zip even part of the way but gets stuck, then they'll often make it with some help. Sometimes, they get stuck zipping because the membrane is too tough, or maybe they're badly positioned. Those are the cases where I step in.

Hatching is such a great learning process. Every hatch I learn something new, or see something I never thought could happen. This hatch, for example, I had taken my eggs out to candle on day 18 before lockdown. Then I put them back in the incubator. The next day...24 hours later!!!...I found an egg in the carton I had forgotten to put back in the incubator. I candled it, didn't really see any signs of life, but put it back in the incubator anyway. It still hatched! It was a little late, but it made it. So there you go...24 hours out of the incubator, and yet it survives. Those eggs are tougher than you might think.

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

Oh and I finally got around to getting some pictures of my new chicks. I knit this one a sweater. He did not appreciate how stylish he looked.

 

[subhanalah]

Oh and I finally got around to getting some pictures of my new chicks. I knit this one a sweater. He did not appreciate how stylish he looked.

Cuteness...overload!

 

[Joshua G]

Quote:

Will do, the new ones also have a plastic screen, an update on the wire screen.

 

[Kassaundra]

Oh and I finally got around to getting some pictures of my new chicks. I knit this one a sweater. He did not appreciate how stylish he looked.

 

[johnderosa1]

Kassaundra, excellent post!!! Yea sometimes reading too much is your undoing . My current hatch is probably going to be my worst ever and I can point to reading one too many articles. I was hatching some BCMs from an excellent source and read a lot about dry hatching and decided to do a modified version.... Unfortunately my basement is very dry due to a heat pump water heater I installed. I was also reading about the dangers of not enough ventilation. I left the vents open this time due to the number of eggs i had at lock down. I also read that the humidity usually spikes when the eggs start hatching en mass... Well long story short, i wound up with sticky chicks in a relatively dry (well ventilated) incubator that weren't hatching en mass. Only eight pipped so far, three zipped and got out on their own, i helped 2 out... Fully zipped but too sticky and three that zipped but died while i was at work... Again too sticky to get out. I tried to get too fancy this time around and really screwed things up. I should have stuck to a simpler plan. Run them on the dry side through day 19 and then crank the humidity to the high side. Its worked in the past and it would have worked now. I haven't given up hope yet but it is likely that this hatch will go down as lessons learned