Hey guys, this is my first hatch. I have a fan forced incubator with a temp. gauge and no humidity gauge that i borrowed from my boss. He claims he has always had great success with it, but then told me about how he had to help chicks hatch, so I now suspect that is not so true. It has two little wells in it, you keep the smaller one filled with water until day 18, then fill the second larger one from lockdown onwards. Since lockdown the humidity must have been very high as there was condensation on the sides of the incubator.
Up until lockdown I turned the eggs 3 times per day. However between day 10-13 I was away and a friend turned my eggs for me, she was only able to turn them twice a day.
I have 12 silkie eggs shipped from one seller. It is also mid autumn in NZ, so the odds were stacked against me. However to my delight all 12 eggs started developing. At day 16, the last day I candled, I had 11 alive eggs, one maybe (seemed less developed than the others). 5 eggs did have saddle air cells, so I knew to expect some losses. But I was not prepared for the disaster of a hatch.
On day 22 two eggs pipped. By the end of day 22 I had two beautiful healthy silkie chicks (I'll post photos soon). However it is now day 24 and I am losing hope that any of the others are going to hatch. No one else has pipped. My biggest suspect is humidity obviously, but is there anything I can do? Should I intervene? I could candle to see if there are any internal pips in the air cells, but we are talking about 10 eggs here, that's a lot of opening and closing the incubator. I assume it's far too late to reduce the humidity. I have been so anxious to the lead-up of this hatch and now I'm just devastated.
Up until lockdown I turned the eggs 3 times per day. However between day 10-13 I was away and a friend turned my eggs for me, she was only able to turn them twice a day.
I have 12 silkie eggs shipped from one seller. It is also mid autumn in NZ, so the odds were stacked against me. However to my delight all 12 eggs started developing. At day 16, the last day I candled, I had 11 alive eggs, one maybe (seemed less developed than the others). 5 eggs did have saddle air cells, so I knew to expect some losses. But I was not prepared for the disaster of a hatch.
On day 22 two eggs pipped. By the end of day 22 I had two beautiful healthy silkie chicks (I'll post photos soon). However it is now day 24 and I am losing hope that any of the others are going to hatch. No one else has pipped. My biggest suspect is humidity obviously, but is there anything I can do? Should I intervene? I could candle to see if there are any internal pips in the air cells, but we are talking about 10 eggs here, that's a lot of opening and closing the incubator. I assume it's far too late to reduce the humidity. I have been so anxious to the lead-up of this hatch and now I'm just devastated.
