Mhassnae
Chirping
Greetings everyone,
I would like to apologise in advance for the long post, I know I am giving too many details but I've just lost a poor chick after it suffered for two days (as well as others who died in their shells) & it was so horrible I never want to witness it again. I am thus making sure I am giving as many info as I can. Thank you for your patience.
I would like to know if anyone here can help me with a few questions: We use incubators to hatch chicken eggs, we've done twice so far with very different results. The first time went amazingly well, all the eggs hatched & all the chicks were healthy and are growing up happily ever since. This was during May & the temperatures were mild (I live in Casablanca, Morocco, so the weather is usually warm during that period, but not suffocating).
This second time around, we started the process on July 5th and most of the eggs started hatching on the 24th. However, a lot of the chicks were stuck in their eggs. At first, we didn't intervene because that's what we had been told & had read in various books, etc. But when we saw that 2 chicks died because they remained stuck, we helped a bit.
Out of the 49 eggs that were in the incubator, 9 never hatched and had dead chicks inside (we kept them in as long as we could, then we checked everything today by candling at first then we cracked each egg to see what was wrong), 9 other eggs never developped even though we saw there were embryos inside (when we cracked them open, they were smaller than a pea after more than 20 days in the incubator).
The last issue was that 3 chicks hatched with their umbilical cords & yolk sacs still attached. One was completely dried so I kept it cozy until it detached and it is doing great, the second kept moving and it tore it with its leg, causing a massive bleeding. I managed to stop the bleeding quickly and thankfully, the chick is doing amazing. The last one died about an hour ago, after having many many issues: it popped its yolk sac (found a way to deal with it here so thank you for that), it couldn't stand properly, kept walking backward, wouldn't eat or drink. It screamed and chirped constantly & had a lot of difficulty to stay warm (I kept it separated from the other in the incubator).
The only difference between these two hatches is the temperature: it has been very warm & suffocating ever since we started the second one and I am wondering if this has any effect on the hatching process. Should we stick to the instructions despite the hot weather or should we have lowered it a bit when the chicks started hatching?
I am asking this question because I have read in many posts here & even elsewhere that a lot of the issues we've had this time were due to high temperatures. Since we stuck to the 37.7°C as instructed, I am blaming the weather but I don't know if these reasoning is correct or not.
Thank you for reading this huge post & for any advice you can provide
P.S. We have incubators from the brand River Systems.
I would like to apologise in advance for the long post, I know I am giving too many details but I've just lost a poor chick after it suffered for two days (as well as others who died in their shells) & it was so horrible I never want to witness it again. I am thus making sure I am giving as many info as I can. Thank you for your patience.
I would like to know if anyone here can help me with a few questions: We use incubators to hatch chicken eggs, we've done twice so far with very different results. The first time went amazingly well, all the eggs hatched & all the chicks were healthy and are growing up happily ever since. This was during May & the temperatures were mild (I live in Casablanca, Morocco, so the weather is usually warm during that period, but not suffocating).
This second time around, we started the process on July 5th and most of the eggs started hatching on the 24th. However, a lot of the chicks were stuck in their eggs. At first, we didn't intervene because that's what we had been told & had read in various books, etc. But when we saw that 2 chicks died because they remained stuck, we helped a bit.
Out of the 49 eggs that were in the incubator, 9 never hatched and had dead chicks inside (we kept them in as long as we could, then we checked everything today by candling at first then we cracked each egg to see what was wrong), 9 other eggs never developped even though we saw there were embryos inside (when we cracked them open, they were smaller than a pea after more than 20 days in the incubator).
The last issue was that 3 chicks hatched with their umbilical cords & yolk sacs still attached. One was completely dried so I kept it cozy until it detached and it is doing great, the second kept moving and it tore it with its leg, causing a massive bleeding. I managed to stop the bleeding quickly and thankfully, the chick is doing amazing. The last one died about an hour ago, after having many many issues: it popped its yolk sac (found a way to deal with it here so thank you for that), it couldn't stand properly, kept walking backward, wouldn't eat or drink. It screamed and chirped constantly & had a lot of difficulty to stay warm (I kept it separated from the other in the incubator).
The only difference between these two hatches is the temperature: it has been very warm & suffocating ever since we started the second one and I am wondering if this has any effect on the hatching process. Should we stick to the instructions despite the hot weather or should we have lowered it a bit when the chicks started hatching?
I am asking this question because I have read in many posts here & even elsewhere that a lot of the issues we've had this time were due to high temperatures. Since we stuck to the 37.7°C as instructed, I am blaming the weather but I don't know if these reasoning is correct or not.
Thank you for reading this huge post & for any advice you can provide
P.S. We have incubators from the brand River Systems.