My chicks are getting stuck inside their shells and look ‘shrink wrapped’. What is causing this?

The main cause of chicks getting stuck in the shells or appearing ‘shrink wrapped’ is either that the humidity has been too low during hatching time, or the lid has been lifted during the final 3 days. 

If you have an incubator without a humidity display, add more water or use humidity pads or blocks to increase the surface area. But of course, don’t add to much! 

Check what you are setting your humidity to for the final 3 days and increase it by 5%-10%. If you are only setting it to 60% and your chicks are ending up ‘shrink wrapped’ then it needs to go to 65%-70%. If you are setting to 70% and experiencing this, then try 75%. If you think the setting is correct, then check the display is reading the correct level. We would advise using the Rcom Digilog3 thermometer-hygrometer and placing it in the centre of the incubator at around egg height. Ideally it wants to be in the incubator for at least an hour before you take a reading, and the incubator needs to be have been running for at least an hour prior to putting in the hygrometer.                                                             Note: Doing this is also a good idea if you have a incubator that does not have a humidity display, because then you'll know exactly what level it is. 

Lastly, why shouldn't you lift the lid for the last 3 days? The answer is simple. For those final days you need high humidity. When the lid is lifted, this action lets all that moisture that has built up inside the incubator escape, resulting in the humidity level dropping. This situation is more common for people new to incubating as they rush to take the hatched chick straight out of the incubator. You do not need to remove the chick as soon as they have hatched if there are still other eggs that look like they may hatch. You can leave hatched chicks in your incubator ideally until the others have hatched or until the hatched chicks have dried out and fluffed up. 

Another good practice is to measure the egg weight loss. There is a lot of useful information online about how to measure the egg weight loss.