Opened the Incubator during lockdown- Im worried

[Zayan]

Hey everyone. Just hatched a baby silkie on day 20. Its day 22 now. Only one hatched so far. I moved the one chick to the brooder and the others are still in the incubator. Today I opened the incubator to try and candle the eggs that didnt hatch. In doing do the humidity dropped to 53%. Could this have killed the eggs if they were alive? Someone please help I am stressing

 

[Little white duck]

I'm no expert but @issac 0 might

 

[Little white duck]

@issac 0 are you there?

 

[Zayan]

I'm no expert but @issac 0 might

Well he was last seen 2015 so idk

 

[Little white duck]

Sorry I'm trying to write his name right but I cant.

 

[Little white duck]

@Issac0

 

[Little white duck]

Dang I'm so useless. Can't seem to get the name right.

 

[Liz Birdlover]

Hey everyone. Just hatched a baby silkie on day 20. Its day 22 now. Only one hatched so far. I moved the one chick to the brooder and the others are still in the incubator. Today I opened the incubator to try and candle the eggs that didnt hatch. In doing do the humidity dropped to 53%. Could this have killed the eggs if they were alive? Someone please help I am stressing

I doubt just briefly checking would cause that drastic damage. When a mama chicken hen sits on eggs, she does take periodic breaks to eat, drink, go poo, etc. You opening it up briefly was like mama taking a break. A break lasting minutes is typical. A break lasting an hour...now that would have consequences.

 

[kcrandall]

Hey everyone. Just hatched a baby silkie on day 20. Its day 22 now. Only one hatched so far. I moved the one chick to the brooder and the others are still in the incubator. Today I opened the incubator to try and candle the eggs that didnt hatch. In doing do the humidity dropped to 53%. Could this have killed the eggs if they were alive? Someone please help I am stressing

A short term drop in humidity will not kill the chicks still in the eggs. Humidity reduces the chance that a pipping / hatching chick does not become shrink-wrapped by the inner shell membrane until they have broken free of the egg. Do you hear cheaping from inside of any of the remaining eggs?

 

[Compost King]

There is a risk of shrink wrapped birds who can not move in the egg to hatch themselves out. Sometimes its fine when you open an incubator briefly and sometimes its not. When this happens to me I have to hatch them by hand and survival rate goes down a little to a lot depending on how good you are at it. Not saying you absolutely need to hand hatch them because everything may be fine depending on how humid it was outside of the incubator/hatcher. If they pip in one spot and that spot never moves its an indication of being shrink wrapped in the egg. I am not even sure how long you should wait from the first pip to the point where you need to intervene is. I spent a few months of going through this before I learned the trick to ignore the incubator until a full day (24+ hours but under 48 hours) after the lockdown period ends. I used to open it up thinking I was helping 1 chick out but really I was shrink wrapping all the chicks that had not starting hatching yet.