Update on Not Disappointed

[mstricer]

Computer hic up

 

[williamsl77]

Ok so the one I helped is yapping around with her friends. I cut the shrink wrapped membrane off of her leg but she still has a good sized piece plastered to her head, covering one eye. I assume this will come off eventually? Will it take her skin off too? I hope I didn't shrink wrap the rest going in and out helping this one. Humidity at 75% due to shrink wrapping.

 

[williamsl77]

Alright... I guess you can read through the drama of the morning... I have four hatched and two more pipped. What to do about the humidity? Should I keep it that high? Is it too high? 75% now after pulling one chick out of dried membranes at 65%...

 

[LegginMF12]

So glad you got her out! I am glad you helped. So many say don't help, but it seems to me that since we are using artificial means to hatch an egg then we will make mistakes and need to do what we can to correct them. I doubt many chicks get shrink wrapped under a hen. But we seem to do it to them quite a bit. Not a weakness in the chick but in our ability to keep consistent hatching conditions for them artificially. When I was growing up our hens hatched all of the eggs with no problem. I did my first incubation and had to help my last chick out due to shrink wrap, she is just fine! Congrats on the fuzzy butts!

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
Hey, congratulations there! I wonder why that one chick got stuck when the others made it out okay...

How many eggs have you still got in there?

I'd say keep your humidity high, especially if you seem to be having a drawn out hatch and you think you're maybe going to have to go in and lift out some chicks while other ones haven't finished hatching or haven't even pipped yet. I run all my lockdowns at 75% humidity minimum, and if it goes higher I never worry about it. I had one lockdown where it got as high as 90% and stayed there for over a day, and it didn't do any harm at all. I deliberately ran a couple of lockdowns at 85% humidity as an experiment to see what would happen, and they just ended up being standard uneventful hatches with vigorous healthy chicks. And surprisingly, they'll still dry off and fluff up reasonably quickly even in 85%+ humidity.

Loads of people caution against a too-high lockdown humidity, saying it could drown your chicks, but the truth of the matter is that if your chicks end up drowned, it's because of a too-high humidity all the way through the incubation from days 1-18 and NOT because of a too-high lockdown humidity. If your eggs have lost the correct amount of moisture going into lockdown, they won't regain any of it during lockdown. And if they haven't lost enough moisture by lockdown, by then it's pretty much too late to do anything about it!

 

[williamsl77]

After three days of hatching, I think we're done. I am exhausted! I posted this in another thread, but then thought I should put it hear in case anyone has subscribed.

I would say a tremendous success overall. Tons of learning... oh, I mean TONS. And looks like a dozen babies to show for it.

I have to figure humidity out for sure. I do think I was a tad on the high side and the smaller eggs suffered. I will summarize the eggtopsy, too.

I have successfully hatched 1 silkie, 5 barnevelders, and 6 BBS bantam ameracuanas. Lost were 2 silkies, 1 golden neck booted, 1 EE (I think), 1 silver spangled hamburg, 1 lt brahma.

Most got out on their own. Two shrink wrapped, but I helped and they are doing great (one of the lessons of don't open the incubator too much?).

So far on the eggtopsy the lt brahma quite mid way. The silver spangled hamburge was malpositioned... beak opposite end from aircell. Golden neck booted full of fluid. Haven't checked the others. Needed a break from that.

I do think I had slightly high humidity during incubation and that was more of a problem for the smaller eggs. One of the smaller BBS was very, very wet when it hatched... in fact, kind of bubbling in its juices. It is out now and quite vigorous, although pretty plastered. The silkie that hatched was also very plastered and has taken a day and a half to start fluffing (although she is dry). The barnevelders did great, though they are bigger birds. All of these eggs were shipped, and it does look like some breeds certainly can take the wear and tear better than others.

I kept the humidity really high for the last part of hatching because I was going in some to take fluffed birds out and the shrink wrapped bird I had was one of the early birds. I thought for sure something was wrong with its leg all day yesterday. Woke this morning and she looks very normal and is chirping around and looks like a champ. She still has membrane plastered to her head, which if hasn't fallen off in a few days, I will wet it and see if I can get it off.

So... things for next time.

1) Stay out of the incubator more. Even through incubation. I candled a lot since I was learning. I'm not terribly sad I did this as I was learning, but now I know more and feel ok to leave it alone more. I think I will candle before incubation and at day 10 and 18. I was very worried about exploding eggs, but I guess that doesn't happen that often.

2) I'm going to keep humidity a little lower during incubation, especially with small eggs. I had kept it at 20-30% for week one this time, but the eggs had lost too much weight. I then kept it around 50% and they had not lost quite enough weight by Day 17. Actually, come to think of it... the larger eggs had lost closer to the target weight than the smaller eggs, which had not lost enough weight. Might have to take account of that in choosing which eggs to set and when and manage humidity accordingly.

3) I didn't weigh all of the eggs last time... thinking that I wouldn't probably be checking them all. I think I will weigh all next time.

4) I learned how to candle, how to check air cells, what to look for with the aircells prior to lockdown. I learned the process of hatching from internal pip to finally breaking through. I learned what dried membranes look like. I learned more of what to expect prior to hatching (when they rock, chirp, etc).

5) I'm reinforcing that with mother nature vs. human intervention, LESS is MORE unless human intervention screws it up so much that you need more human intervention to fix the problems. Actually, I can't wait until I have a broody hen.

6) Started eggs one day and added a few more the next day. Made hatch really long. Bad idea. Will space them out more next time.

I will post pictures later this evening after the kids go to bed...

Thanks to everyone who answered my 1000s of questions.

 

[rarely bored]

Over all it sounds like a great hatch! And you have learned so much that your next hatch will be even better!! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Me & Jack]

Yes, you definitely learned some good lessons. Next hatch, though, you'll learn some more, and if you're like me you'll discover that some of the "mistakes" you thought you made would have not been a problem the second time around. For me, humidity is the greatest challenge. I've tried dry incubation -- seemed okay but not a perfect hatch. I've tried upping the humidity throughout incubation -- same thing, not a perfect hatch. That's one reason I like my Brinsea Mini-Advance: it doesn't seem to need any intervention from me at all. I've had excellent to perfect hatches from it repeatedly. Just wish it could hold more eggs. (Yikes! Did I just say that? Hmmm...this is definitely an addiction, isn't it?! LOL)