Oh no...

[Mesa]

I candled my eggs today and my air cells look huge! I am just starting day 15 and my humidity has been kept between 40-45%.
Whats going on here? I though dry hatching was ideal??? I'm talking the air cell looks to be 1/3 of the egg already. In another few days it'll be half the egg! Theres no way there will be enough room for my chicks to grow....
Whats wrong? I calibrated my 2 hygrometers before I even set these eggs. I know my calculations are right on with my temps and humidity levels.
I'm using a hova 1588... temps 99-100 degrees steady and humidity 40-45%

 

[panner123]

Calm down everything will be O K. With those figures you should have a great hatch. What do the chicks look like?

 

[Chicken Woman]

Wow that's weird ! Mine are on day 16 and my hum is at 30 to 35 and I don't have that issue . HMMMMMM

 

[Mesa]

Well now I'm second guessing my hygrometers... whats the chances that both are wrong and the calibration was off too?

I hope my hatch isnt crappy now.

 

[Chicken Woman]

Are they moving around ?

 

[Mesa]

yeah...so far. As they get bigger though they'll run out of room though. The eggs are assorted too. I have some Ameraucana and some Marans... both sets have big air cells. The marans are hard to see but I was using 2 flashlights and it helped a ton.

 

[Akane]

I had the same problem with dry incubation and 40% or lower humidity. They had giant air cells and I had a bad hatch. I keep the humidity closer to 50% and at least 45% and I recently had my best hatch so far. It doesn't work for everyone.

 

[Patchesnposies]

Chicken Lickin-We are also in New Mexico and tried to do the dry incubation thing. Our eggs ended up having HUMONGOUS air cells and our hatch rate was very low, with lots of fully developed chicks that were sticky and or died before hatching.

What we have found with our very, very dry climate is we have to do a much higher humidity. In fact with our last hatch of Serama eggs, we kept the humidity up in the 70% range. We were shooting for 75% for the incubation and then put it up in the 80+% range for hatch.

It seemed incredibly wet to us and in fact we had moisture in the windows the whole time, but that is what it took to keep the air cells the right size.

All of the chicks were able to make out all by themselves, and are the healthiest bunch of chicks we've ever hatched.l

Out of 1 dozen eggs (shipped from Houston to southern NM) we got 9 babies!) We are convinced that with our dry desert air, that the key to successful hatches is keeping the humidity UP.

 

[Mesa]

Thanks for the info on our climate. It weird that 40% humidity here is different than 40% humidity elsewhere.
I wish I had figured this out sooner though.


I need to buy more eggs I suppose lol.

 

[ginbart]

Your going to wait and see if you get anything right? I hope you get some.