First hatch, issues - humidity, air sac, temperature, the whole Kaboodle

[Eliselove]

Hey there, everyone and thank you for reading this.

It may be a bit late on the year to hatch but I had a free rooster for a few weeks and here we are LOL

I have two main areas of concern for this hatch right now. I think maybe low temps have the development behind schedule, and/or high humidity has the air sac on the small side. I'm trying to figure out the best way to go forward and give everyone the best chance possible (if any)

I am on day 16. I did candle one representative egg today and the air sac looks smallish. Looks like a day 14 air sac instead of a day 16 air sac. Chick also looks smallish, not crowding the shell at all.

I have a hovabator 1620, the thermostat and thermometer it came with, and no humidity gauge. I have an LED candling flashlight.

I have had trouble regulating the temp sometimes when the weather has changed. I have been running it mostly at 99 - 100, aiming for 99.5 but yesterday I read that 100 or 101 is better for still air incubators despite the mfg instructions. I have turned it up a tad but it's late in the game!! So now it is 100-101.

I have my house super dry as a rule (dehumidfied) so I had used channel 1 and 2 for days 5-16. Yesterday I found this awesome diagram which is hopefully attached, and got worried. Today I carefully emptied channel 2 (for those of you who don't want to look up my incubator, it has 4 channels, each one has less surface area than the last, with 4 being the smallest) and I did an air exchange in the incubator (fanned it out quickly) I think now that the second channel was overkill and I hope I haven't put these little peeps at risk.

Going forward I am thinking that I may have to assist the hatch if the air pockets don't get bigger, and the chicks may be a day late emerging.

in case it matters, there are 22 eggs in the bator. They are a f-rhodie/m-barred rock cross and should be adorable. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/barred-rock-rooster-rhode-island-red-hen.125473/

Any feedback is appreciated!

If you know a good thread on assisting a messed-up hatch, Please post it! I wasn't finding things when I searched.

Also, newbie question here for SURE, but... some people say keep turning all the way to hatch, and some ppl say to stop turning on day 18. I don't know which one is correct!


Many thanks, y'all.

 

[slordaz]

thats not an issue I have had but then again I hatch at high altitudes which is a whole other set of issues, I would not add any more humidity until day 18. To much humidity during incubation as well as low temps can cause issues tagging some people as brain is not awake enough to find the article in the learning center right now that helped me get through hatching issues when I first started.
There is usually a hatch along running each month in the egg and incubation area of the forum, a lot will depend on where you are for advice, but lots of help in there too

@Ridgerunner
@PD-Riverman
@Sally Sunshine

 

[aliciaplus3]

Day 14 and day 16 are very close in air cell size. If I understood correctly you based the changing of the incubator settings on looking at one egg out of 22? If that was the case it's time to properly candle all of them and see what the average of them looks like. My point being that one egg maybe less porous and loosing moisture faster than others or less porous and loosing moisture slower, gotta shoot for the average in these cases. If I misunderstood and the change was decided after looking at all the eggs then bravo to you, and yes I would go with no added water and see if you can get those air cells to grow a little. Now did you run an extera calibrated thermometer? The one that comes with some units isn't always true, I like to run several extera till an incubator is proven true. And lastly if you get to hatch time and it looks like too much liquid is still in the egg you can let them hatch in cut down egg cartons so the stay sitting fat end up and do not get knocked around, or excess liquid has less chance to drown baby.
Best of luck. My "last" batch of the season is due the 18th. So we are closer...

 

[Ridgerunner]

That is a lot of questions, I'll try to get to some of them. Thanks for all the information, that helps a lot. And welcome to the forum.

Warm air rises. That means in a still air incubator it is very important where you take the temperature. In a forced air the recommended temperature is 99.5 F. In a still air the recommended temperature is 101.5 F taken at the top of the eggs. If you take the temperature at the elevation of the middle of the eggs 99.5 F would be better. So where in relation to the eggs are you taking the temperature?

There is a range in temperature where the eggs will still hatch. It's not a case that at a certain temperature they immediately go from all will hatch to none will hatch, but the further from the ideal the greater the chance that fewer will hatch. There are limits but a fairly wide range works. There are at least two different things with that. It's not the instantaneous temperature in the incubator that matters. The egg material is a lot denser than air. How long the air temperature is at a certain level will determine how much effect it has on the embryo. Short temperature spikes are not always that bad. They are not going to cool off enough when you take them out to candle them to make any difference at all.

The other part is the average incubating temperature has an effect on how soon they hatch. The ideal is often given as 21 days, but that is not absolute. There are many different reasons why they can be early or late. Some of my hatches are over within 24 hours of the first chick hatching, some can drag on for over two full 24 hour days due to these other reasons, nothing to do with the average incubating temperature. But in general if the average incubating temperature is high, they can be early, as much as two full 24 hour days. Or if it is low they can be just as late. Then you tack on the other stuff.

The egg needs to lose a certain amount of moisture for it to hatch. That's why humidity is important. Again, the window that works is pretty wide. Some things complicate this. Each egg is different and can lose different amounts of moisture in the same conditions. As an example, some eggs are more porous than others but there can be other differences. The longer they are stored the more some eggs can lose moisture before incubation even starts, especially if humidity during storage is low. Where you are or eve time of year can make a difference, things like height above sea level or the temperature and moisture content of the air going into the incubator. Professions that may hatch 1,000,00 chicks a week in incubators that hold 60,000 eggs find that if they move the incubator to a different part of the incubating room they have to tweak humidity to optimize hatches.

I'm not trying to scare you with all this. I'm trying to show that the window that works is pretty darn wide and it is too complicated for simplistic answers. You are probably better off than you may think. we tend to over-worry. My general recommendation is to try to be fairly consistent with humidity and see how it works. That means you need to open unhatched eggs and see if you can see clues as to whether it would be good ti increase or decrease humidity during incubation. These links can help with that.

Mississippi State Incubation Troubleshooting

http://extension.msstate.edu/content/trouble-shooting-failures-egg-incubation

Illinois Incubation troubleshooting

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/eggs/res24-00.html

Since each egg is different candling one egg doesn't give you a good overall picture of how different eggs are doing. I generally candle all my eggs when I go into lockdown and remove any that are obviously clear. But I only remove the ones that are really obvious.

We typically do two things at lockdown, stop turning them and increase the humidity. Turning is important to the eggs development early in the incubation for different reasons. But after about 14 days of incubation for chicken eggs those reasons are gone. You really don't have to turn the eggs after that. It doesn't hurt to turn them but it's not necessary. It's convenient to stop turning and increase the humidity at the same time. If you are using an automatic turner its a good idea to remove it at lockdown if you can. That makes clean-up easier plus a chick might get a leg, wing or neck trapped if it is still in there. As a minimum turn it off.

The reason we increase the humidity at lockdown is that the membrane that surrounds the chick in the egg can possibly dry out and shrink-wrap the chick so tightly that it cannot hatch, especially when the chick external pips. In real life this doesn't happen that often but it does happen. It is good practice to increase the humidity.

The reason we typically go into lockdown mode after 18 days is that the egg can external pip and even hatch a full two days early. You want the humidity up before external pip. Nothing more complicated than that. Some people regularly open the incubator during hatch but I consider it good practice to only open it during lockdown if you have a good reason. Opening the incubator can allow enough moisture to escape to shrink-wrap a chick. As I said it doesn't happen that often but why take an unnecessary chance? But if I have a good reason I will open it.

I don't know if I answered all your questions, probably not. But my main suggestion is to carry on and see how this incubation goes, then analyze the results.

Good luck!

 

[Eliselove]

Ridgerunner and AliciaPlus3 thank you for the replies I am so grateful. I'll try to tell you all what I can about things here.

Temp
I am measuring at the top of the egg. I did add an external digital therm, and they are actually running the same - although whether either one is accurate, who knows. I have upped the temp to run 101.5 at the top of the egg but sometimes it goes as high as 102, this disc thermostat is not very reliable and I want to strangle it.

Air Sac
You are right day 14 and day 16 are very close. I did not candle every egg to take an average. Egg size varies wildly also, from small to extra large, and that may play in as well? I've now misplaced my candler but I will buy another today and see what things look like. The mamas are 2 years old and their shells still seem pretty good but absolutely there is a ton of variability both in size and in porosity probably. These are all unrinsed so that is also a factor. I may try your cup idea to help the little guys out, I certainly don't want any of them to drown.

Embryo development: I did candle everyone earlier in the game and I don't have any unfertile eggs, every single one had blood vessel development by day 7 no blood rings. At this stage I think I can see a pretty formed mass in each one (they are BROWN) but it's not as large as I had expected.

The info on the background behind turning the eggs is fascinating! All this info is great, thank you to both of you and I will reread these several times.

It's my first hatch, and I need to just be philosophical. I may have a protracted lockdown -as you suggest there can be a wide variability -- and i may rig it up so that the hatch is in a warm steamy bathroom in case I do have to do any assisting. If i get 10 chicks out of 21 I would think that is pretty great probably.