- Jun 2, 2011
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I have been hatching chicks for about a year now in my hovabator and Lg... I never had an egg turner until this spring, but haven't had too much problems until now. My last two hatches I have had problems with the chicks pipping and even zipping but then some of them die before hatching. I had 5 eggs do it this time (8 hatched just fine and are cute as can be). I helped one out some took some of the shell off so it could breathe and then it hatched, but it's belly was huge and a few hours later, it had literally lost some of it's guts- it looked like liver and a bunch of stringy junk, so hub put it down right away. One of the just pippers poked his beak out yesterday and tried to hatch, but appears to be dead in it's shell now. There was a strange fluid that came out of the egg. I don't think I am doing anything different than before other than adding the egg turner... are the temp/humidity setting different when you use a turner? I have had this happen with chicks and quail this year. Some hatch just fine and others end up dead in the shells half hatched. I did a batch of quails in the lg without a turner at the same time as I did a batch of chicks in the hova with a turner. Same temps and same humidity. quails hatched great. Chicks were only about 60-70% hatch rate. the ones I just hatched, I only got 8 out of 18- 5 as I mentioned above, two still int the bator with little hope of survival and 3 duds....
