Pulling chicks from incubator while hatching.

Okay, so I have my first hatch of the year unfolding as I type. I have about 25 chicks out and 13 more to go and as you know, it's pretty chaotic in there and seemingly becoming more difficult for the other chicks to hatch cause they're being rolled around so much. I want to pull what chicks have hatched but some are still very wet.

I know to leave the wet ones in till dry but what about the process of opening and closing the lid as I pick and choose......will it chill the wet ones? I also know to mist in the incubator while pulling to keep humidity up for the pipped ones but again am concerned about the wet ones already hatched. If I wait till they dry, I'm assuming more will continue to hatch, so the 'wet chick' issue won't end.

Oh my, can you tell I'm a bit nervous?

I tend to leave them all till done, but when you have smaller incubators or small hatching trays it does become an issue for room.
Every time you open the lid I feel you are threatening the ones pipped but not hatched yet, but like you said if you leave the hatched ones in there they are causing issues in themselves by moving the pipped eggs around so much.
I limit myself to once every 12 hours, so reach in quick, grab what dry ones you can and then spritz (with warm water) and wait another 12 hours before opening again.

At Clayton's seminar he said do not open the bator and flood the wet chicks with cold air. You will get chilling.

I am in the same boat. Different stages in the hatch has different chicks at different stages. I hatch different breeds together so they don't all hatch together. Here is what I do. Once every 24 hours I open the bator and take everyone who is standing on their own out and move them quickly and immediately to a warm brooder. Two people can make this even quicker if your brooder is not beside the incubator. So far it has worked for me.

Okay, thanks Schipper and Hidden. It's been 24 hours and yes, all the Orps hatched before the other two breeds. Didn't realize that happens when mixing breeds.

I'll give them another hour and then pull my first batch.

Put in a divider ? that way they stay and dry off and the eggs that are left aren't used for soccer !

I hear all the time about not opening it. I didnt attend any seminar and I usually look to both Hidden and Schip for advise when it is given. However, I think it also depends on where you have them. My incubator sits in a room that is about 74 F. I do alot of staggered hatches. Usually they are all due within three or four days to hatch. I still open it to take out the dry ones, but only once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and to take out the empty shells. I just stick in my arm, not really opening the lid all the way.

I had 38 eggs in a space for 41 which still appears tight once chicks really get hatching. It is a nerve racking thing to have to do....opening during hatching. I did it and don't feel great about having done so even though it's been 24 hours since the first hatch. I only pulled 13 out of 25 as I could only grab 2 or 3 at a time having to reopen quickly each time. For sure next time I will divide the hatching tray up into designated breeds. The Orps came a day early and the Wyandottes are still trying to get out at the mercy of all those chicks that have hatched.

pfarms, how many hatches do you do back to back (every 3 or 4 days) before cleaning incubator again?

In my small Brinsea I would wait until most were done but that was only 24 at the most.

In Bertha I am not as worried. She gets right back up the temp and humidity very quickly. I unload them once a day and take out the shells too. I feel sorry for the newbies and the ones trying to hatch when the fit ones play soccer with them!

Sounds like different things work for different people and you may just have to find what works for you.

I will set eggs in usually for three days. Then I clean it after the third day. I usually allow it to dry for a day then start again. I raise my own slow meat birds. So, I hatch as many as I can. I dont have that many laying hens. I dont like to have eggs sitting around waiting til I have enough to fill the bator, mostly cause I have two very energetic and climbing kids that get into everything. So, when I am filling it, it takes me about three days, this last one was four days. I incubate them, hatch them, and then after they are all done, I clean it and start again. Usually, mine all hatch within 24 hours of their expected hatch time. So, on average, I am hatching for four straight days. In my last hatch I only lost one and that was a cull that had a messed up leg.

I have been putting in a few eggs every other day and the hatch is very staggered and I leave my turner on , I just wait till the chicks are dry and then put them in the brooder once I think they are ready .They can sit in a spot that the turner doesn't use up and thus they are safe and they normally just sit there till I remove them .I have heard so much about not opening the incubator etc and I have come to the comclusion that it really doesn't affect it in any way

I open that bator whenever I stinking well want, grab any chick I want at any stage of hatch and then put him back in, if I want, or stick him in the little brooder pen, if I want.

I know this will fly in the face of every person here but these are chicks NOT HAND GRENADES. They do not explode, implode, blow up, float away or DIE because you opened the bator! If all it takes to kill a chick is some fresh air wafting on it, then you have BIGGER problems than bator issues! You have weak chicks, get better ones!

To further horrify the responsible hatchers I will confess, here, in public, that when I get chicks who are wet for too long and are likely to end up crispy, I take them out of the bator while still wet and GIVE THEM A BATH! Yes, all those floppy, wet, wobbly chicks flailing around and stepping on the guys half out, it's a traffic trauma in there! I get those troublesome kids OUT of there!

Then these poor, oppressed, mishandled and compromised chicks are tossed onto CEDAR shavings, cedar being the universal killer of livestock and fed NON-MEDICATED starter or even crushed lay pellets if I'm out of chick starter. ANd here's the kicker...my chicks don't die! With all the literature and wisdom out there, what explains my rate of almost 100% livability of chicks? I think I have the toughest darn birds on the planet if they can survive my guerilla hatching tactics.

THe point of animals is to reproduce and survive and you can be sure that a mother hen does not stay up nights studying the fine print on how to hatch her eggs. All sorts of unforseen events occur when a hen is broody and still, the point of those eggs/chicks is to be tough enough to survive the possible vagaries of their unpredictable lives. If we have developed birds that require this much tedious care, concern, worry and agony in deciding whether to open the bator or how often, we have made massive mistakes with our birds! Your chicks should NOT require this high degree of specialized handling. If they do...we are breeding inferior birds! So handle your chicks when and how you think they need to be handled and quit worrying about it. If they die from fresh air, well, then you have spared the gene pool one more weak gene.

Uno your post has inspired me to respond with something I have been thinking about for a while now.

Do we treat these little guys to well? My broody raise chicks are out in the muck and squalor (not really, but you know what I mean) and they never, EVER get sick.

I have to admit, I have never had a lot of trouble with brooder raised chicks, but I am not a clean freak and I get them outside pretty quickly. My brooders certainly don't get cleaned out everyday as I have read some people do.

In Australia I would brood on sand, circumstances were a little different cause they were out in a shed as the weather was never harsh. I would add dirt and large plant pieces for them to pick at and scratch through. I wonder if I was helping to build their immune systems.

I have just moved my 2 week olds out to a shed (three sided with the front blocked) that had adults in it all winter. I cleaned it but did not disinfect it. I wish it was warmer, but I have given them 2 heat sources, one a heat lamp which is not my chosen heat, but they need the warm right now. It is snowing right now and only 3 degrees. Lets see if they survive. They are happy and active and seem to be coping with -3C at night.

I do feed medicated until they are a bit older, but have never had trouble with cocci. My chicks seem to survive really well and I certainly do not baby them. I may be talking to soon, they have only been out for about 5 days.

Do we treat them too good and not give them survivability? Just something I have been thinking of lately.

This is a VERY good question, Coopslave.

All I can say is that I tried for a while to do everything by the book and when the book learning was NOT working, I tossed the book and went rogue. Radical. Out there.

My hatchability varies. I get some good hatches and some bad. BUt my livability is almost 100%! I have lost some to physical problems (yolk belly or with turkeys, flippers). But just finding dead chicks for no known reason, that does not happen. Not even with my meat birds.

But I keep small numbers. I have NEVER, not once in my life, disinfected a hen house. I do wash bator between cleanings, but have never used Virkon, sometimes bleach.

You could say my place is like boot camp for chicks...make it or drop dead. And the astonishing thing is that most of them make it! But I am not fiddling around with finely tuned picture perfect breed descriptions. These are mutts. THese are barnyard chickens in the most rugged sense. They is what they is. And they is tough customers!

Chickens are omnivores and will eat anything that they see! How do you disinfect for and protect a bird that will eat worms it sees in poop! I think we need to ramp down rather than ramp up our procedures and methods and I truly believe that the hardiness of the birds is as much genetic as environmental. Coddle them too much and what do you get? BIrds that will die just to spite you! It's very reasonable to keep birds within reason, but for me, that line is more loosely defined than it used to be.

[quote="uno"]I open that bator whenever I stinking well want, grab any chick I want at any stage of hatch and then put him back in, if I want, or stick him in the little brooder pen, if I want.

I know this will fly in the face of every person here but these are chicks NOT HAND GRENADES. They do not explode, implode, blow up, float away or DIE because you opened the bator! If all it takes to kill a chick is some fresh air wafting on it, then you have BIGGER problems than bator issues! You have weak chicks, get better ones!

To further horrify the responsible hatchers I will confess, here, in public, that when I get chicks who are wet for too long and are likely to end up crispy, I take them out of the bator while still wet and GIVE THEM A BATH! Yes, all those floppy, wet, wobbly chicks flailing around and stepping on the guys half out, it's a traffic trauma in there! I get those troublesome kids OUT of there!

Then these poor, oppressed, mishandled and compromised chicks are tossed onto CEDAR shavings, cedar being the universal killer of livestock and fed NON-MEDICATED starter or even crushed lay pellets if I'm out of chick starter. ANd here's the kicker...my chicks don't die! With all the literature and wisdom out there, what explains my rate of almost 100% livability of chicks? I think I have the toughest darn birds on the planet if they can survive my guerilla hatching tactics.

THe point of animals is to reproduce and survive and you can be sure that a mother hen does not stay up nights studying the fine print on how to hatch her eggs. All sorts of unforseen events occur when a hen is broody and still, the point of those eggs/chicks is to be tough enough to survive the possible vagaries of their unpredictable lives. If we have developed birds that require this much tedious care, concern, worry and agony in deciding whether to open the bator or how often, we have made massive mistakes with our birds! Your chicks should NOT require this high degree of specialized handling. If they do...we are breeding inferior birds! So handle your chicks when and how you think they need to be handled and quit worrying about it. If they die from fresh air, well, then you have spared the gene pool one more weak gene. .................... Well spoken as always Uno

Oh my god, I love it. Thanks Uno and Coop. Great stuff to ponder. I think it's the nervousness for me of being responsible for these little lives I brought into the world and fear of having to deal with the consequences if I screw up. But I'm all for NOT coddling them, although I do love taking good care of my birds nutritionally and providing substantial protection from predators for them. But they're in uninsulated coops (draft free) and I didn't give those four birds antibiotics this past winter, as hard as it was not to, that were unwell and they're all much better. Just kept going with the hydrogen peroxide and AC vinegar in their water as well as good quality food.

Anyways, I'm almost relieved to know that both your approaches during hatching have worked for you and I don't have to worry. I worry unnecessarily enough about things that keep me awake at night.

By the way, 32 out of 38 hatched! That's 84%. My best hatch yet and my first in the Hovabator. All is well. Thanks for everyone's suggestions and experience.

Prairie Dog, tip, smiling.

If you type in the symbol and words (copy and paste this if you want) that I am typing in for you after my sentence and put them right after the last letter or the .....in Uno's post, that will end the quote and you will get her words put into a box. I would do it for you, but I don't think others can edit someone elses post. Take no offence, but it will help to see Uno's words she said, so they are in a box, have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Type this :

[/quote]

or just copy and past those few words and symbols as I said, try it, it works, part of the quote part was missing.

CynthiaM wrote:Prairie Dog, tip, smiling.

If you type in the symbol and words (copy and paste this if you want) that I am typing in for you after my sentence and put them right after the last letter or the .....in Uno's post, that will end the quote and you will get her words put into a box. I would do it for you, but I don't think others can edit someone elses post. Take no offence, but it will help to see Uno's words she said, so they are in a box, have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

Type this :

or just copy and past those few words and symbols as I said, try it, it works, part of the quote part was missing.[/quote]


I was wondering what happened ? Hope this is right?

[/quote]

Guess not ? O well I won't "" Quote "" anymore thats all

Don't feel bad Prairie Dog, I never figured out how to work the quote thing either...although I might do some experimenting with the 'quote' tab I see above this window that I'm typing in right now. Let's see if I can blow up my computer...

prairie dog wrote:Guess not ? O well I won't "" Quote "" anymore thats all

prairie dog wrote:Guess not ? O well I won't "" Quote "" anymore thats all

Why two? I have NO idea how I did that!