Need Help/suggestions for Silkies/bantoms

[shay0903]

Hello, I have 1 pair of silkies and 1 pr of partridge wyandotte bantoms that are great layers, fertile and dying to have babies from. I just lost 4 PW bantoms and 1 silkie egg but not sure what I may be doing wrong or if power failure may have affected the eggs. I candled at day 10 and was left with these 5 eggs. I have a power failure of no greater than 2 hours one day. By the time we got the generator hooked up the temp had dropped to 74 but the humididty had been relatively the same. I have been using a "dry hatch " method keeping the humididty lower between 20-40 during days 1-18 and then increasing to 50-65 on 18-21. I kept the humididty towards the lower values because I heard that bantom eggs were more affected by higher humidity. I have a 2 LG giant incubators ( one for incubating, one for hatching) both had stable temps. The humididty did fluctuate more the last week of incubation because of the crazy weather we had ( we had a few tornadoes in our area. ) But nothing majorly out of those ranges given. I opened the eggs at day 23 because the eggs had not pipped. All 5 were fully developed and none had pipped into the air cell. The air cell did not seem wet either. The air cell I thought may be a little large for bantoms but really not a drastic change from the start. 4/5 had absorbed the yolk. Am I running my humidity too low ? or what other thoughts suggestions may you have with bantom/silkie incubations and their small eggs. Thanks!!

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

This is the "$100,000" question. I don't think you are doing anything wrong. Do be sure to lower your hatching temp just a tiny bit. Industry standard for hatching is 1-2 degrees lower than incubation because the chick is starting to create it's own heat by hatch time.

I do think too high heat at hatch can be fatal.

 

[Ms.Frizzle]

You have to also remember that the surface area is greater for banty eggs, so they will lose moisture faster then standard sized eggs. I'm having that problem currently with a couple I have in a mixed batch. I just didn't think about it. : /