Oh No Lockdown One Day Early!!!!

[harris farm]

I miscalculated the days and i locked down one day too early. Will this hert they eggs or are they possibly going to kill them?

 

[tailfeatherzs]

I've done that a couple of times, still had good hatches.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I haven't done that, but I suspect it will not have much effect on your hatch. The reason you have lower humiduty for the first 18 days of the hatch is so water will evaporate from the eggs in the right amount. You raise the humidity the last few days so the chick does not dry out and stick to the egg membrane after it opens the egg shell. I sincerely doubt going into lockdown a day early and raising the humidity is going to affect how much total moisture is going to evaporate enough to matter. Do not lower the humidity now to try to compensate. You'll likely do a lot more harm than good trying that and it is probably not necessary at all.

The other reason for lockdown is to stop turning the eggs so the chick can better position itself for hatch. You turn the eggs during the first 18 days so the developing chick does not come into contact with the egg shell membrane, dry out through the porous shell, and get stuck. This is posssibly a danger to a few of the eggs, especially if your incubator is running a little cold and your hatch is going to be a bit late, but I really doubt many, if any, of your eggs will be affected by this. The higher humidity during lockdown helps stop this from happening.

Lockdown is not an exact science. Many of us have incubators that run either hot enough or cold enough to change the hatch date by a full day or more. In effect, that causes us to miss lockdown by a full day or more, and we often still get good hatches. Until you know your incubator and how it is running, you should try to get lockdown right to improve your chances as much as you can, but being off a bit usually will not hurt your hatch that much. Mine runs hot so I have, in effect, locked down late a couple of times. After examining the eggs that did not hatch, I don't think the late lockdown affected my hatch. Early lockdown will probably not affect your hatch that much, if any.

 

[nivtup]

No problem.

Good luck with the hatch.

 

[harris farm]

Thanks for the help. I was a bit weary.

 

[flgardengirl]

I have done it and it turned out okay. You should be fine.

 

[mothersin2ition]

I put mine into lockdown on the night of the 17th day

so far so good. Im sure your eggs will be fine!!