URGENT Hatching help please - what happened?

[nuthatched]

From a local farm very near me with a great reputation and very good hatch rate.
I candled the eggs and they looked amazing.
When the initial 6 hatched, dried and became active, they were running through the incubator banding into other eggs and even flipped some 180 degrees. I think that caused the unhatched chicks to have their heads moved out of the air pocket.
Since posting, I did some research. I floated them all to find the air pocket and used a tiny drill to make an air hole. I'm afraid I was too late, those moving and chirping 4vdays ago are lifeless. I believe the deformed ones that last hatched had brain damage from lack of oxygen.

This wasn't your fault. It's genetics or bad nutrition of the parent flock.
Deformations do not come from the egg turned upside down.

Good Reputation can be bought, bad Reputation can be buried.
This farm very clearly has an inbreeding issue.

 

[NatJ]

I'm certain that no water got in the eggs after floating, so if there is any chance of life, I've done all I can for now.

Eggshells are porous. That is how moisture escapes during incubation, and how air gets in for the chicks before they hatch. That's why it is generally better not to float eggs that might contain live chicks.

I doubt it made any difference in this case, so I was only trying to point it out for future.

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst.

That's about all you can do now

 

[Toothpick]

On day 19 the eggs were fine and you heard them chirping. So sounds like something happened after day 19.

You say you pulled the 6 chicks from the incubator after they hatched. How long was the incubator open while you pulled the chicks?

I don't think it was a temp issue. 99.5-100.5 is not a big enough swing to cause a problem IMO.

It does seem odd that things were fine on day 19 and then boom, dead after that.

It's hard for me to decipher just the facts from a long wall of text. Not you, that's on me.

 

[Toothpick]

Since posting, I did some research. I floated them all to find the air pocket and used a tiny drill to make an air hole. I'm afraid I was too late, those moving and chirping 4vdays ago are lifeless. I believe the deformed ones that last hatched had brain damage from lack of oxygen

Just saw this. Sounds like you killed them. Sad but true. I've hatched quite a few eggs and the chicks bump in to them and toss them around and it doesn't bother the unhatched eggs at all. They still hatch. Floating them and drilling in to them surely killed them. Don't do that next time.

 

[NatJ]

Just saw this. Sounds like you killed them. Sad but true. I've hatched quite a few eggs and the chicks bump in to them and toss them around and it doesn't bother the unhatched eggs at all. They still hatch. Floating them and drilling in to them surely killed them. Don't do that next time.

I thought the floating and drilling happened after the first post in the thread.

That would mean it was after day 23, thus after the chicks had spent 4 days being quiet and doing nothing. So I think they were probably dead before that happened.

 

[Toothpick]

I thought the floating and drilling happened after the first post in the thread.

That would mean it was after day 23, thus after the chicks had spent 4 days being quiet and doing nothing. So I think they were probably dead before that happened.

Ahh. That may be the case. The OP doesn't exactly say at what point the eggs were floated and drilled though.

If it was after they were lifeless...that's very odd for 19 to suddenly die.

If it was shortly after the hatched chicks were removed then it makes more sense the cause of death - drilled and floated.

I find it very unusual that the chicks were fully developed and then die just a couple days before hatching. My first thought goes to user error at that point and not an egg/chick problem.

 

[Susan Skylark]

First off, you did not kill these chicks and neither did ninja hatchling antics!!! Failure to hatch, dead in shell, underdeveloped or weak or deformed chicks result from damage to the dna of the undeveloped preincubated egg, it then divides and spreads to every cell in the resulting chick. I had a spate of this this winter after 90% hatch rates all summer and fall with no change in incubation technique. I even thought I drowned them when water candling suspicious ones, but it happened in eggs that weren’t water candled too, the common denominator was cold exposure preincubation, the eggs developed great but chicks died at or shortly before hatch, most were underdeveloped or deformed. I’ve also seen it with shipped eggs and have no doubt extreme heat (104+) will do the same. I even opened some of these eggs to help chicks and they didn’t make it. Put down the poor cripple for his own sake and your own. Open the remaining eggs and learn from the experience. And yes, genetic or nutrition problems in the source flock may be an issue but if they or others aren’t having issues with their eggs, I’d assume some sort of trauma to eggs preincubation or in the first few days, though it may be impossible to say what. Don’t give up or blame yourself, learn from it and enjoy the babies you do have and try again!

 

[Duck Breeder]

23 days ago I began incubating a batch of 36 eggs. Mix of common breeds.
Through candeling I identified 4 that were bad, 32 were developed and healthy looking.
On day 19, 6 chicks piped and hatched within a few hours. Several more eggs were moving and there was chirping from within.
At the advice of my mentor, I waited until the first 6 to be fully dry and pulled them out and put them in the brooder. They are doing great!

Today is day 23..... 2 other eggs piped on day 19 (along with the 6 that hatched) but never progressed. After 2 days with no progress at all, today I peeled a bit of shell and membrane away, just enough to give them a chance. Both eventually hatched, but sadly are/were deformed. Feet curled in, knees outrageously large, wings undersized and unable to hold up there heads. 1 of the 2 was born with the sack (yolk?) outside, hanging. I left those 2 in the incubator for an extra long time and sadly, 1 passed. The other is still alive. It's feet and knees are not as severe, but it can't lift its head up at all nor can it walk. Won't open it's eyes. I've used a dropper to give it some of the vitamin and electrolyte water the chicks have, but it didn't help.

The other 24 eggs seem lifeless. Those that were moving and chirping on day 19/20 have stopped moving and have gone silent.
No signs at all of life.

What happened?
What can I do?

Humidity is still at 70% (increased on day 18) and the incubator temp is 100.5.

I did open it (during lockdown) to remove the 6 chicks that hatched on day 19, and again to remove the 2 sickly/deformed chicks.

Can I do anything to get the remaining eggs to start them progressing again? They were moving and chirping on day 19 and now, day 23, they are lifeless.

Should I help and if so how?

W the at can I do for the chick that can't hold his head up?

What might have caused healthy and moving eggs to suddenly go idle and not progress in the past 4 days?

I am clueless and feel helpless

I have had duckings with birth defects when I was having trouble keeping the temperature where I wanted it. We candle every night and tap lightly on the shell with our finger nails and chirp and talk to each egg we get lots of response so we know how they are doing. We have some that will go into lockdown next week it's hard to get the light at the right angle but we had some moving 3/4 of an inch tonight. On the ones with no movement try lots of angles with the light and tap lightly and talk and watch for movement

 

[MyNYfarm]

That seems to rule out many of the possible causes!


That is certainly one possible explanation.

But it has me puzzled, because it is quite common for the first chicks to bash the other eggs around, and people often have good hatches anyway. So I don't know what would be different in this case as compared with other cases.


In future, I would probably find the air cell by candling instead of floating. That way you aren't getting water on or in the eggs (possible drowning risk if they are alive, does not matter if they are already dead.)

I'd be curious to hear what you discover tomorrow.


I've read that the "perfect" temperature is different for some kinds of incubators than others (based on whether the air is moving, and where in the incubator the temperature is being measured.) That could be a reason you are getting conflicting information.

The eggs actually need the same temperature in any case, but the thermometer reading might not match.

Higher temperatures can cause the chicks to hatch a bit earlier, and lower temperatures can cause the chicks to hatch a bit later. Given that you had six chicks hatch on day 19, when the usual time is 21 days, I think the temperature probably was a bit high.

I opened the eggs. All chicks were dead
I have no idea why. They are fully formed

Here are a couple pictures; any ideas?
It's heartbreaking.

 

[MyNYfarm]

First off, you did not kill these chicks and neither did ninja hatchling antics!!! Failure to hatch, dead in shell, underdeveloped or weak or deformed chicks result from damage to the dna of the undeveloped preincubated egg, it then divides and spreads to every cell in the resulting chick. I had a spate of this this winter after 90% hatch rates all summer and fall with no change in incubation technique. I even thought I drowned them when water candling suspicious ones, but it happened in eggs that weren’t water candled too, the common denominator was cold exposure preincubation, the eggs developed great but chicks died at or shortly before hatch, most were underdeveloped or deformed. I’ve also seen it with shipped eggs and have no doubt extreme heat (104+) will do the same. I even opened some of these eggs to help chicks and they didn’t make it. Put down the poor cripple for his own sake and your own. Open the remaining eggs and learn from the experience. And yes, genetic or nutrition problems in the source flock may be an issue but if they or others aren’t having issues with their eggs, I’d assume some sort of trauma to eggs preincubation or in the first few days, though it may be impossible to say what. Don’t give up or blame yourself, learn from it and enjoy the babies you do have and try again!

Thank You. That's comforting. I drove to pick up the eggs locally. His eggs, based on his experience and all his customer reviews, have over a 90% hatch rate
The eggs experienced no trauma before or during incubation and his flock is about the healthiest I've seen. I'm concerned it's something I did. Why were they all rolling and pipping and hours later, dead?
The dead chicks removed from the eggs were fully formed with no sign of effect?
I'm at a total loss