Taking Newly Hatched Chicks/Ducklings Out Of The Incubator

[Patchesnposies]

I have read over and over about letting the newly hatched birds stay in the incubator until they are dry, about 24 hours.

When we leave ours in there they end up climbing onto the other eggs and getting onto the heating element. We haven't had any of them get hurt yet, but I am afraid they will. We just end up taking them out of the incubator sooner and putting them under a heat lamp.

So far, of the ones that have hatched we haven't lost any. There were several that didn't make it to hatch. Fully developed, just died before they pipped.

We have 30 Langshan eggs due to hatch in 3 days and about the same number of ducks are due the end of this month, if only a fraction of them hatch there will still be lots of eggs in there for them to climb up on. They are in two incubators.

One is an older hovabator and the other is a new LG.

What do you all do to keep your babies away from the heating element?

After these two hatches I am going to make sure that there is an incubator available to use as a brooder until they are dry.

Thanks!

Deb

 

[KellyHM]

Most people leave their chicks in for up to 24 hrs so that they don't have to open the incubator and let the humidity out. I personally don't have a problem w/ my humidity dropping (I'm in FL) so I usually open it twice a day and take out whatever chicks are dry at that time and into the brooder they go. It's just a personal preference.