My normal incubation humidity is about 35% but with the serama eggs in the incubator I was watching it a little closer and noticed it was hovering around 45-50%, I'm unsure why it was that high unless it had to do with my incubator being pretty full and I had other eggs which although older had the same hatch date as the serama, so I figure humidity probably went higher than my norm just due to the eggs which were reaching hatch stage. I did have a few slimy chicks, so my end humidity was probably a little too high but I had read serama needed higher than normal humidity.
I left the eggs in the incubator, in the rocker turner, still turning until I had external pips..Then moved them to the hatcher. I managed to hatch a high % and those were shipped, so I viewed it as successful. 6 out of 11 set eggs (removed some clears and failed to develop eggs, 8 went into lockdown)
There was one egg/chick I would have lost I think if I had left it alone. Everyone else had internal pips and this one did not, but I could tell it was alive. So I made both his internal and external pips and left him alone until everyone was out. Then I gave him a hand. At the time I broke thru his membrane he was really sucking the membrane in and out. I just found where his beak was and split the membrane there (there was a little blood). But made sure I gave him enough room to get his beak thru and able to breath. The little guy is alive and kicking and seems every bit as strong as the ones which hatched on their own. He's my smallest chick and has been from hatch, so I'm glad I helped out.
IF I were to hatch more shipped serama eggs I think I would be even more hands on than what I was. I'm pretty sure I could have saved one of my 2nd round of set eggs if I had intervened as I did with the one I helped internally pip. Would prefer them to hatch naturally, but seramas have that reputation as being really hard to hatch. Out of my 2nd set 8 were shipped to me, 3 made it to the end but one was DIS on about day 17, so 2 went into the hatcher and only 1 hatched.
They did hatch on day 19.
I left the eggs in the incubator, in the rocker turner, still turning until I had external pips..Then moved them to the hatcher. I managed to hatch a high % and those were shipped, so I viewed it as successful. 6 out of 11 set eggs (removed some clears and failed to develop eggs, 8 went into lockdown)
There was one egg/chick I would have lost I think if I had left it alone. Everyone else had internal pips and this one did not, but I could tell it was alive. So I made both his internal and external pips and left him alone until everyone was out. Then I gave him a hand. At the time I broke thru his membrane he was really sucking the membrane in and out. I just found where his beak was and split the membrane there (there was a little blood). But made sure I gave him enough room to get his beak thru and able to breath. The little guy is alive and kicking and seems every bit as strong as the ones which hatched on their own. He's my smallest chick and has been from hatch, so I'm glad I helped out.
IF I were to hatch more shipped serama eggs I think I would be even more hands on than what I was. I'm pretty sure I could have saved one of my 2nd round of set eggs if I had intervened as I did with the one I helped internally pip. Would prefer them to hatch naturally, but seramas have that reputation as being really hard to hatch. Out of my 2nd set 8 were shipped to me, 3 made it to the end but one was DIS on about day 17, so 2 went into the hatcher and only 1 hatched.
They did hatch on day 19.
