oh no. still alive or probably dead....nephew did a stupid thing...

[nbenevento]

@roach56, I am curious, what kind of hatch rates do you get? It is always understood that when the eggs go into lockdown...well they are in lockdown. Don't open the bator. I follow that rule pretty religiously and I have good hatches and less than perfect hatches as well. I am really curious how candling has affected your hatches, if at all.

 

[roach56]

Well I'm certainly no expert and only recently began incubation chickens. I've raised psitticines for 35 years which required me to incubate once in a while. I honestly had never heard the term lockdown as most all the parrot breeders never followed that approach. I am using a pretty decent cabinet style incubator so opening it during the last 3 days doesn't affect it much as it recovers within minutes. I guess I should be more careful with advice as opening an incubator where you lift the top off may be a problem. As far as hatch rates I hatched 9 out of 11 fertile silkies today and 10 out of 14 Breda last week and I open and candle several times a day during the last 3 days. Both groups of eggs were shipped to me from eBay purchases.

 

[WarrenHound]

if it was only for a 2-3 minutes you should be fine longer than that and i think you risk some neurological issues.

UPDATE: 5 out of the egg, 1 pipping and 1 that died getting out of the egg (not sure what happened there) but obviously the time frame without ventilation didnt hurt them to much =]