Nostalchiq
Hatching
- Mar 30, 2018
- 4
- 3
- 6
Hello! I'm new to this community and I was hoping that someone here might be able to share their knowledge with me in order to prevent a very sad reoccuring event from happening again.
My husband and I have been attempting to incubate fertilized eggs from our own flock for a few months now, somewhat unsuccessfully. We have thus far managed to hatch a few healthy chicks, but there have been far more unhatched eggs as well as unhealthy chicks. It hurts my heart to see them suffer and die soon after.
We have been using an incubator that does not include any of the bells and whistles, such as a humidity regulator or a fan. It's basically just a foam container with a heater and a computer to tell us the humidity and heat levels.
Anyway, we've hatched about four chicks total now that have ended up suffering from the same thing. They won't be able to walk and then they'll fall onto their side and kick to try and get up, but they are unable to do it on their own. I try to pick them up and place them on their bellies, but they flop over soon after, sometimes ending up on their backs. The other chicks in the brooder box will trample them and they'll chirp helplessly as the others peck at them and torment them.
I've looked online to see if I could figure out what's wrong, but I can't seem to find anything beyond the possibility of neurological damage from being in their shells too long. One of them did come out late, but the others were right on schedule. We try our best to keep the humidity up but it's difficult to get it past 50% for some reason.
One thing I considered is that maybe the holes in the grate in the incubator might be too big and might be catching their little toes and damaging them after they hatch, but the grate came with the incubator, so why would they use one that could harm the chicks?
It isn't wry neck because they don't look up at all, they just can't stand for whatever reason. Other than that, in the beginning they seem to have a lot of energy, when they aren't sleeping.
Can anyone help? I don't think I can handle seeing many more of these babies suffer like this.
Is this a normal thing?
My husband and I have been attempting to incubate fertilized eggs from our own flock for a few months now, somewhat unsuccessfully. We have thus far managed to hatch a few healthy chicks, but there have been far more unhatched eggs as well as unhealthy chicks. It hurts my heart to see them suffer and die soon after.
We have been using an incubator that does not include any of the bells and whistles, such as a humidity regulator or a fan. It's basically just a foam container with a heater and a computer to tell us the humidity and heat levels.
Anyway, we've hatched about four chicks total now that have ended up suffering from the same thing. They won't be able to walk and then they'll fall onto their side and kick to try and get up, but they are unable to do it on their own. I try to pick them up and place them on their bellies, but they flop over soon after, sometimes ending up on their backs. The other chicks in the brooder box will trample them and they'll chirp helplessly as the others peck at them and torment them.
I've looked online to see if I could figure out what's wrong, but I can't seem to find anything beyond the possibility of neurological damage from being in their shells too long. One of them did come out late, but the others were right on schedule. We try our best to keep the humidity up but it's difficult to get it past 50% for some reason.
One thing I considered is that maybe the holes in the grate in the incubator might be too big and might be catching their little toes and damaging them after they hatch, but the grate came with the incubator, so why would they use one that could harm the chicks?
It isn't wry neck because they don't look up at all, they just can't stand for whatever reason. Other than that, in the beginning they seem to have a lot of energy, when they aren't sleeping.
Can anyone help? I don't think I can handle seeing many more of these babies suffer like this.
Is this a normal thing?
Nutrition of the parent chickens never occured to me, so that is definitely something to consider!
Alaskan knows his stuff . so I'll touch on the basics . Here are a couple of things I use to either check things out. Cheap thermometers at 
I finally found this little combo called a hygroset II humidor hygrometer and thermometer . the hygrometer can be set after calibration to the exact humidity . The thermometer is off by a degree or two plus or minus . The hygrometer is what I want to be right ,so I don't mind the thermometer being off a little . I love this little thing pricy $20 off 
