Newbie

[chickchickuk]

Hi everyone! I've been keeping chickens for a year. Love fresh eggs every day! I have just started to incubate some of our eggs. I had two failed attempts...one with a homemade incubator and the second with a brinsea octogan 10 both still air. Chicks either drowned or shrink wrapped and couldn't hatch out.
I decided to buy a new brinsea mini advance. I followed the instructions. Humidity was around 40% during incubation, I added a little water to one of the reservoirs then as instructed, filled both up at lockdown (end of day 18)
First 3 pipped and zipped perfectly, within minutes of each other...

But it raised the humidity to high I think for such a small incubator and the last 4 were in trouble. They had all pipped but couldn't zip. SO....I helped them!! One by one. They were all sticky chicks, the last two, were the worst, they just couldn't dry off so I washed them with warm water and dried them with a hair dryer till fluffy. (Found this info in a thread on helping sticky chicks) They were very weak and tired, I put them in brooder (fish tank) under a brinsea Eco glo, and hoped for the best. Woke up to them this morning and they are all doing fine.

So happy!
Just set 7 bantam eggs this morning...I don't want a repeat of what happened so any advice on using the mini advance appreciated. What if I lockdown without filling with so much water, as hatched chicks raised humidity anyway, would that help? Should I lockdown later? Say day 19 or when they have internally pipped?
P.S Thanks for reading

 

[chickchickuk]

I'd appreciate any advice...thanks

 

[Silkie-Feet]

I've never used the Brinsea mini, or any Brinsea for that matter. For lockdown, you will need to add water. Although hatching chicks may increase it anyways, the first few to hatch will get stuck without a higher humidity. You said your humidity during incubation was around 40, I aim for around 30. Could the stickiness of the eggs be from not loosing enough moisture during incubation? Awesome hatch! Did you get a 100% hatch rate?

 

[chickchickuk]

Thanks for reply...yes 7/7 chicks. The first 3 hatched no problem. But it was extremely humid after they hatched so I was thinking that if lockdown was 70% then after the first three hatched, humidity was then to high and the 4 after had to be helped out of the shell.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Thanks for reply...yes 7/7 chicks. The first 3 hatched no problem. But it was extremely humid after they hatched so I was thinking that if lockdown was 70% then after the first three hatched, humidity was then to high and the 4 after had to be helped out of the shell.

I run 70-75% humidity at lockdown with no problems. It definitely shouldn't make it harder for them to get out of the shell. However, during the incubation process eggs loose moisture at different rates due to different variables (eggs size, porousity of shell) and it would be entirely possible that those eggs lost less moisture making them wetter/stickier or that the shells on those eggs were thicker. If they weren't all from the same hen you may find that one hen produces thicker shells or less porous shells.

 

[chickchickuk]

Amylynn...They were a mixture of eggs from different hens so you could be right about that. Thank you