My first hatch!

[MapleLeaf86]

Oh wow, I'm not sure why but I've suddenly dropped down to 30% humidity in the last 2 hours! That's weird, it's even rained outside, so it's more humid than normal outside the incubator. I have been losing a % every few hours since I went on lockdown but... wow. I was at 72%.... I'm guessing egg #3 may be a goner. Should I interfere? Should I wait? I haven't seen any more movement.

Edit: I'm going to wait and not open it, but should I add more warm water through one of the vents? I have tubing I can use to fill a duct...

 

[ozexpat]

Oh wow, I'm not sure why but I've suddenly dropped down to 30% humidity in the last 2 hours! That's weird, it's even rained outside, so it's more humid than normal outside the incubator. I have been losing a % every few hours since I went on lockdown but... wow. I was at 72%.... I'm guessing egg #3 may be a goner. Should I interfere? Should I wait? I haven't seen any more movement.

Edit: I'm going to wait and not open it, but should I add more warm water through one of the vents? I have tubing I can use to fill a duct...

sounds like the bator is dry. add warm water with tubing

 

[MapleLeaf86]

#3 now looks zipped a cenimeter or so, but stopped. 2 is a little wet, and 1 is dry. No other signs of hatching.

Used the tubing to add humidity this morning before my nap, back at 79%. That's on the nice gauge from incubators.com, the other one from walmart got wet and has been stuck at 33% and 123F, so I may have broken that one... (oops...)

 

[robopetz]

Your lil eggies sure are taking their time to come into the world lol. Keep us posted

 

[MapleLeaf86]

Fluffy was out so fast! He went from a little rocking to outside his egg in about an hour! He's a ball of energy in there right now, he looks completely healthy, so I guess he set the bar high. The others are having issues, but I still have hope they'll hatch. Before lockdown I though I had at least 5 good eggs out of the 14, but candling is hard on these tiny eggs. I think because the humidity dropped they could be having trouble. Next time I think I need to put an extra container in there with a sponge.

 

[gimmie birdies]

congrats on your fluffy- when my batch hatched last month I saw 2 hatch at the same time that was fun! all my eggs hatched. I did loose one chick, I was hatched on day 23 1/2 and it was rolling around with its navel cords still connected, and a big belly button trying to kick off the shell. I removed the shell but left the cords and connections and the outer skin where it was connected to the cords. then I put her in a sock so other chicks would not peck the wound and went back to bed it was 2AM.(if I stayed up with her maybe she would have mad it but I was too tired. I normally heat up one of those rice bag things not too hot and wrap them up and pack them around so they think someone cares.) when I got up at 6am I saw she had crawled out of the sock and

died.

The other 5 are doing well, I put them with 5, 5day old store chicks and everyone is getting along.
I took some pics and will put them up.

I hope hatches are going well!


the freckled one on the bottom was a yellow chick, maybe she will be white. anyway all the others were B&W

 

[MapleLeaf86]

The sock is a great idea to prevent pecking! Fluffy has been pecking at the other eggs and #2, so I've been a bit concerned, but it seems just curious right now. My ladies and boys are young that these eggs came from, so I think their fertility could be low still. They could be partially to blame for my low hatch rate issues We're all a new team over on team Maple!

I took #3 out since it's been 24 hours with zero movement and with the humidity drop I was concerned. I candled, no movement. Took tweezers and followed a guide here on BYC to remove pieces of shell. He wasn't moving at all. I removed the whole top above the air sac, and it looked like he was vacuum sealed in the egg by the membrane. I'll definitely have to do something more for humidity next time. He was warm, but definitely dead. No movement to indicate breathing, could see his beak and it was covered by membrane.

While the process wasn't that gross, I did get pretty upset gaged a lot from nerves ha ha. First timers right? :|

 

[gimmie birdies]

was he wet though? I have had ones like that if they were wet use less humidity.

 

[MapleLeaf86]

His fluff was dry and the membrane wasn't even tacky anywhere.

 

[MapleLeaf86]

Okay moved both chicks to the brooder since one has been around 48 hours, and quickly put a little warm water in the trays (my SO helped!). Not sure if anyone else will hatch, but I'll still give them until Wednesday.

After the chicks looks like they had full energy and were exploring, I put a heat light over my desk and grabbed the one with curved toes and attached the little pipe cleaner boots I made to his feet. This was EXTREMELY difficult as his feet are TINY and his toes are thin. All the examples online I read where people doing this on chickens, peafowl, emus bigger fowl. Am I the first person to do this on a quail? I imagine not, but oh was it rough! I was scared to break his toes!

Also, the very end of his toes were a brownish-grey before I started, right where the nail starts. I've never seen that before, maybe bad circulation? And the lump I first saw when he hatched is still present, just not very noticable now that he has fluffed up. It's a greyish mass on the back right shoulder-neck joint. It's soft to the touch. I'm wondering if he he or the parents might have some kind of vitamin deficiency or such? Anyone know what either of those two things are? I checked the resources here but I didn't seem to find anything solid that would explain both of those.