What happened? :((((((

[josefini]

First time hatch. I set 24 shipped eggs. Only 1 silkie egg had any signs of life at lockdown. Id been keeping humidity 25-35% during incubation. Raised to 65% for lockfown.

The egg pipped on day 19 at 8pm.
Started to unzip at 8pm on day 20.
Good vigorous pushing and zipping movement in a straight line around air cell area. I could see a beak pushing in and out and hear some chirps

3 hours of flexing and pushing. Then about 11pm no more movement at all. I gave up and went to bed. Up this morning at 6am and still no more progress, no movement, no chirp.

I read online about assisting, so opened incubator to have a look.

The outer membrane was stiff and white. I found the beak right there but head, beak, eyes were all covered with a clear kind of thick snot like substance.

Being clear she was dead, i peeled off more outer membrane. Most slightly stiff and in a few places stuck to feathers enough to pull them out. This was on the butt a bit and upper back/wing a bit. Also more snot substance tho not loads of it. More like just a few strands a thick rope like slime. The lowest one a bit amber colored.

No blood, no yolk, all internal organs absorbed. All in all a perfect chick. But dead...

What has happened here and how do i correct it?

Was she just too weak?
Humidity problems? But too high or too low and during incubation or lockdown?
Was she stuck in that membrane at her butt/back so couldnt rotate to unzip? But why was her face smothered in clear slime?

Id post pictures but cant figure out how. She was a perfect little fawn colored silkie.

other info: 1588 hovabator with fan and set temp of 100 deg. This was consistent with two other thermometers i checked with and the humidity was consistent b/w the bator reading and my (cheap) hygrometer. I used an auto turner on shipped eggs that sat still with fat end up 3 days prior to setting. I did notice a bit of a saddled air cell in this egg.


Help me . Im so depressed. Thanks in advance.

 

[josefini]

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Well, shipped eggs are a toss up to begin with. Normally 25-30% I'd say was good. I run 30% for almost all my hatches- except the last silkie hatch I did. Shipped eggs. They were quite a bit smaller than my eggs and I found after starting them out at my normal 30% that they lost moisture too quick and needed a higher humidity than I usually run. I ran those silkies at between 40-50% and just let the air cells guide me. 12/14 that went into lockdown hatched out healthy. The higher humidity was VERY uncomfortable for me. I'm a big pusher of low humidity incubation, but that's what these eggs needed.

I would never let a zipper go past an hour without assisting. Zipping unlike pipping should not take hours to finish. Mine are generally out w/in 20 minutes start of zip to pushing out. If they have started zipping that says they are ready (or at least they think they are), so the chances of assisting being too soon is slim. I see too many people on these pages loose zippers that have stalled and had prolonged zip times that I won't chance it.

I would say that with all the snottiness maybe it needed a little higher humidity during incubation. I know that's been my recent experience. Sorry to see your bad experience.

 

[josefini]

This is really xcellent info and im so grateful you took the time!

And just sick i didnt help her out when she was going strong. Omg.

Thanks a lot for the insight and ill apply it in round 2.

 

[josefini]

Humidity Queen: if you see this what humidity levels would you recommend for a mixed batch of silkies and other breeds? Ive been reading your posts all day and admire your MO.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Humidity Queen: if you see this what humidity levels would you recommend for a mixed batch of silkies and other breeds? Ive been reading your posts all day and admire your MO.

I would go by the air cells. Which can be harder to do with shipped eggs if they are saddled or detatched. I was lucky enough to get my eggs from a wonderful lady on here who does the BEST storing and packing of her eggs (and she has beautiful silkies. My avatar is one from her eggs.) And Other than 3 or 4 wobbly air cells that firmed right up within 48 hours, I didn't have air cell damage, so it was easy to see that after a few days of running my normal 30% that the air cells were growing quite quick, so I upped it to between 40-50% I'd say it averaged right in the middle.

Now, I also came to the realization that (other than my Spitz who are medium white and loose moisture fast) in the future when these guys mature and I start hatching their eggs, it'll be only silkies because I wouldn't want to jeapordize other eggs by running higher humidity. I made the mistake of putting 4 of my large greens in with these guys and my greens could not loose enough moisture. I had two that couldn't turn and one of them drowned in the excess fluid. The other one pipped all the way through the shell at the bottom so I was able to save it, but it too had a lot ofo excess fluid. So I highly recommend doing them separately, unless the eggs can loose enough moisture at a higher humidity.

This is my humidity theory/method: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity