Day 23 - Initial thoughts on hatch results, my babies are about to be famous!

It’s already day 23 and only 22 chicks had hatched out of the 44 fertile eggs.  Unfortunately, one of them died (which I'm not including in my count of 22 chicks that hatched) within 36 hours after hatching.  Here it is pictured below. I feel so bad because it's the only one with feathers on its feet.

I have no idea what happened because just a few hours ago, it was perfectly active and healthy chick.  All of a sudden just a few minutes, I saw it at the corner of the brooder next to the feed container lying on its back and legs straight and already stiff.  The rest of its body was still warm but it was definitely dead already when I found out so I took it out of the brooder.  

And another one of the 22 looks very weak and just keeps sleeping.  

And then there’s one that is still in the incubator (chick id 152) because when I took it out, the abdomen was still attached to a sac even though it is already completely out of its shell.  I'm not including it in my count of 22 hatched chicks.

Chicks are supposed to hatch on day 21.  I have a lot of draggy hatch.  Only 5 hatched on time on day 21.  I think what I might have done wrong is opening the incubator too frequently to remove the chick(s) as they hatched.  And it caused the temperature and humidity to drop, reducing the percentage of remaining eggs that will hatch.  I should have left the chicks for at least 6 to 8 hours before moving them.  But the issue here is that there will always be another egg piping every 6 to 8 hour interval so it’s kind of catch 22.

Videos below were taken on day 22.  I had to remove the chicks as they hatch because it was crowded in there and I was afraid the chicks would get injured. And you will notice most eggs are on the right side.  It's because for some reason, either our floor is not flat, or the styrofoam where the incubator sits on is not leveled.  I had trouble trying to space them properly in the middle when I removed the turning tray because they kept rolling to one side.  And it was a very crucial milestone in incubation where eggs should not be shaken too much and I think I may have taken too long in removing the turning tray causing the eggs to chill a little bit.

 

And I took this picture below because the way the egg shells crack tells me about the humidity level during the incubation and hatching periods.  If the crack is closer to the blunt side, it means the humidity was too high, if the crack is closer to the pointy side, then the humidity was too low.  The ideal should be just right above the middle which is a little closer to the blunt side where the air sac is.

But then again it’s tricky to figure out what went wrong with this egg id 152 (one of my favourite green eggs I want to breed more).  On one side it’s closer to the pointy side (the lower part of the egg), but on the other side of the egg, it’s on the blunt side (upper part of the egg).  So maybe that’s why this one is still struggling in the incubator right now.  It's abdomen is still attached to a sac.

I still have the incubator running right now.  I was about to remove the remaining eggs and consider them dead but chick id 152 is still alive.  When I first saw it earlier today, I seriously thought it will not survive.  And I still see a couple of eggs piping.  Maybe I’ll give it another 10 hours. 

I will post another blog and analyze each and every egg as much as I can that didn’t hatch for my own records/purposes.  I want to further do some more digging on what went wrong.

 

On the brighter side, below are some of the cute healthy chicks.  They are all mixed breeds.  I tried to keep track of at least the hen that laid each egg (never mind the rooster) but it got out of control that I lost track big time.  They are so active now at just 1 and 2 day olds and some has attitudes already (oh no, must be roosters!).