Hatching egg rollover problem

[Guest]

I have an issue that somebody may have already addressed.  My incubation/hatching process is something like this:

1) Set eggs in incubator w/ automatic turner.  The eggs sit in egg holders.
2) On the 18th day or so, move eggs to stationary hatcher laying eggs on their side to allow the chick to orient itself in the shell.
3) Chicks start hatching on day 20, w/ bulk hatching by day 21 and a few stragglers on day 22.

Everything is all peachy.  Well, sort of.  

During the hatch, some of the earlier arrivals kick and squirm and generally just bang about while kicking out of their shell and afterwards clumsily gaining their legs and mobility.  During this bowling session, the other eggs not so speedily hatching get rolled over on top of their pip hole.

I lose 1 or two chicks this way it seems every hatch.  At first, i thought they were just pipping down and then drowning or getting stuck to the tray.  Then, I began to mentally mark each pipped egg through the clear window and to know which ones to expect to hatch next.  When that one didn\'t hatch on schedule (like within the next few hours), i opened the door to investigate and found that egg now pip down and dead in shell due to being rolled over.

Anybody have a fix for this?

[Guest]

It is not unusual for a chick to pip and not hatch. I have had had this happen a number of times. I do not think the rolling is the problem. When a chick pips, it will turn inside the egg and cut the end out of the egg so that it can hatch. The chicks are probable in a weak condition and can not hatch.

If the humidity is not high enough the chicks can stick inside the egg and not be able to turn. This  can prevent them from hatching. I am not saying that humdity is your problem but adding information to the thread.

I have hatched chicks  and wanted to keep them separate for marking. I took cardboard and cut the card board so that it fit together to make little rooms for each egg. When the chicks hatched they were in each little separate room and then I could toe punch each chick.

It is hard to explain how I cut the card board. You can do it however you want but just make a cell for each egg.  Make sure you make the room twice as long and wide as the egg.
The chick needs room to hatch and get out of the shell.

Rooster

[Guest]

Your best bet is take the eggs out of the turner on day 19 then don\'t look in again till day 22.   You will always have chicks that pip and don\'t hatch Mother Natures way of culling weak chicks.   Opening the incubater during the hatching process is more damaging to your hatch than the hatched chicks rolling the eggs around as you lose your humidity causing the chicks to stick to the shell and die as Rooster pointed out..  Good Luck

[Guest]

Humidity isn\'t a problem and i only open the door once a day to pull chicks.  The humidity drops maybe 10-15% but recovers within 10 minutes.

This one example the egg had rolled over and the exact pip spot was on the 1/8 inch grate.  I found a leak spot on the wire and a shell chip stuck on the wire.  I know that this is a coincidence because the pips are always off the roll line on the larger end of the egg.  But, in this case, it had rocked up on another egg holding it at the right spot.

I agree with you both that there will be a certain amount of them that do not hatch due to being weak.  I\'m just trying to weed out needless ones due to outside influences.

Thanks to you both for your comments.