- Jul 5, 2012
- 2
- 0
- 7
I'm hatching with several little giants. I clean the bators in between hatches with dish soap and then with hydrogen peroxide and lastly let them air dry in the sun for a day before refilling. I Take the egg turner out on day 18. On day 21 everyone is hatching like normal except they are not drying out. The incubator becomes a swamp. The ooze from the chick eggs and the humidity seem to create something toxic in there. If I don't remove the chicks within a several hours they start to die. So I usually end up pulling out chicks in groups of every 10 or so hatched and put them in a brooder where they are fine, happy healthy, full of energy. The chicks that hatch towards the end, (last 3-6) seem to have a low survivability rate, labored breathing and are very sticky. Some of the second group never get fluffy in the brooder as they dry they just look like drowned rats. It's my belief that its too humid. We're at 100% humidity right now (south east US) and so was the incubator. Our average humidity is 60-80 here. The last 4-5 to hatch from every batch seem cold, labored breathing, sickly and sticky, (2 of the 5 from yestarday's hatch have died as of this morning the other 3 are limp and struggling, this is typical for my hatches). 4 eggs pitted but didn't hatch and the last 5 eggs did nothing. I'm wondering if the pitted ones drowned or were gassed by noxious vapors in side the swamp-bator. No one seems to talk about the possibility of too much humidity on hatching day. Is that ever possible? suggestion? ideas? I dry incubate and my hatch rate is much better since I started the dry incubate method, but I put water in resevior for hatch day. Any suggestions would be very appreciated. Thankyou
