What the heck happened?????

[silkiechicken]

But you said they were all dead and with no feathers? Then they must have died before day 16 or so because by day's 12 or so feather germs start to form on the chick's bodies.

Per question about high ambient temps, generally you try to keep it in a room with lower ambient temps, it's just the heater won't turn on if it's that hot.

 

[arlee453]

I'm so sorry that happened!

I'm going nuts with worry over my 11 eggs myself. It is a more nerve wracking experience than when I was pregnant myself!

Isn't it the way that the one time you can't check on them as regularly as usual, that's when you get the temp spike??? Murphy strikes again...

 

[beebiz]

Quote:
I'm sorry I didn't make that part clearer. When I said "ambient" temp in my last post, I was referring to the ambient temp inside the incubator, not the room.

I tend to agree with you about the approximate day of death. I said the chicks had little to no down development. There was a very little that was obvious on a precious few of them. But, it was very little. That was what made me think that the point at which development stopped coincided with the approximate day of the temp spike.

Cynthia, I did not try to raise the rh during the last 3 days. I wanted to try this as close to the dry incubation method as I could. I don't believe this was a humidity problem anyway. I checked each and every one of the 44 eggs. All had a reasonable air space. None had a tough or leathery membrane. And, all appeared (to me) to have ended development somewhere between day 13 and day 15. And, all within a day or two of each other. I say this because their feather development ranged between little to virtually none.

Thanks, Susan! You are exactly right about Murphy!! I wish someone would shoot that sucker!!!!!! Hold it... HOLD IT... don't anyone go shooting anyone by the name of "Murphy!" I was just kidding!!!!!!!

Good luck with your eggs Susan!!

Robert

 

[speckledhen]

Robert, it's my understanding that even in dry incubation, the humidity is raised the last three days. I use a semi-dry incubation myself (35-45% usually) and I always get the humidity up past 65% the last three. The lack of feathers seems to tell us that they did die before that stage, however.

 

[hinkjc]

Cynthia is on to something here and I can almost guarantee it was your humidity that caused the early deaths and no down development. The humidity was way too low during incubation and not raising it at the end made it impossible for them to survive and hatch.

Dry humidity only works in some areas and is meant as a guide typically for those in high humidity locations. However, I have found that it never works here, no matter how high our humidity is, the eggs always dry out too much.

Proper humidity maintains the proper space in the air cell so the chick can grow to proper size and reach that first breath of air successfully. Additionally, lack of humidity could be the primary cause for the lack of & short down chicks.

I'm so sorry to hear this turned out this way, but it is a lessoned learned and I would definitely try again without following the dry incubation method and see if your success is better.

I think I should also note that the age of the pullets could have been a contributing factor in the early death of the embryos as well.

Jody

 

[Tuffoldhen]

I agree with Cyn and Jody...humidity....

 

[Mareloo]

Quote:
Interesting.. The younger the pullet the easier it is for the embryo to die? If I am assuming correctly.. My hatch rate will improve significantly.. in time! Thank you for mentioning that.

 

[beebiz]

You guys may be right about the humidity. But, I respectfully submit that I don't believe so. Here's why:

First, just a few weeks ago I used the dry incubation method to hatch out some Mille Fleurs. I had a total hatch rate of 63%... an improvement over the 10% to 25% hatch rate that I had in the past when I used the higher recommended humidity levels. Most of the chicks that I had hatched before had drown before they could make it out of the shell.

Second, thanks to rainy weather the humidity (inside and outside the house) has been higher here during this hatch than it was during the Mille Fleur hatch.

Third, as I said, I opened and inspected every egg. The air cell in each was of an acceptable size... not too big... not too small. None of the membranes were thick, dry, or leathery. And, there was still plenty of moisture inside the membrane with the chick.

Don't get me wrong.... I'm no expert!! But, I'm going off of what I have learned in the past from you all here at Back Yard Chickens and from my own experiences!

Robert

 

[beebiz]

BTW.... Cynthia, as I said, I used the dry incubation method with the Mille Fleur hatch. And, all I did was to add about 1/3 cup of water to the biggest trough in the hatcher when I stopped turning them on day 18 and put them in the hatcher. I did the same with this hatch and just forgot to mention it in my original post. Unfortunately, I don't have a hygrometer in the hatcher yet.

Robert

 

[speckledhen]

I remember now that you don't have a hygrometer in the hatcher. In the first post of the original thread, you mentioned that you had the humidity less than 40% through to the end. I've read some info on dry incubation relating to the last three days and it still seems that no matter how low you keep the humidity the first 18 days, it still must be up in the 65-70% range toward the latter stages. How you'd measure that without a hygrometer, I'm not exactly sure, though. We're just trying to get to the bottom of the problem here and your temp spike was not enough to kill every one of the embryos, IMO. Others have had much worse temp spikes and had a decent hatch. That leaves humidity, poor ventilation, genetic weakness and only a couple of other things, but for them all to die at that one stage seems perplexing unless it was just way too dry or they suffocated from lack of oxygen. We focus so much on humidity and temp that we can forget that these are living creatures and they need oxygen. We may never know for certain, though. Just do everything as right as you know how every time and hope for the best.