Please help! Several Late Deaths on hatch day.

[dolly85]

I would bet its a humidity problem and the chicks are getting stuck. Now that you opened the incubator and started to help I suspect you will need to continue to help to get these guys hatched out. Keep up what you are doing with the warm mist and chipping away at the shell slowly and it sounds like you may get at least a few chicks out of this hatch. Best of luck.

 

[ChooksChick]

I'd like a visual of how big the air cell is- you can chip away all of the shell around the aircell and take a pic- if their blood is pulled in from the membrane you can wet the membrane enough to open it and allow chic-on-half-shell. Keep them moist and they'll work their way out. There is a sticky on helping them when it comes down to choosing to help.

I'd like to see the size of the aircell to determine whether you have too much evaporation over the first 18 days or too little. Usually when Marans have trouble hatching for me, it's that they didn't evaporate enough early on and are too big to pip correctly. I have to help occasionally when I don't sand the shell. I have an auction up right now that goes into my philosophy about Marans eggs- it is contrary to what some others believe about them, but it works for me.

I'm heading out right now, but will check back in a couple of hours. Best of luck!!