Eggs day 21 alive and not pipping;(

Holding my breath and hoping these eggs can pip and hatch. I put them in an incubator the afternoon of March 9th and had problems with temperature swings with a wafer thermostat so I moved the eggs to a home built incubator with a digital thermostat. We live at high altitude and have wild variations of atmospheric pressure with storms which might have affected the wafer thermostat temperature swings, some as high as 104.

No pips yet but temperatures and humidity have been good. I water candled one egg and it was alive!
Sharing a picture of my incubator in case anyone has suggestions. The lockdown temperature has been just below 100 (set at 37.4 C) and the lockdown humidity is around 68%. I have sponges in the trays and an extra tray with a sponge in the other end of the incubator. Can't seem to get the humidity any higher?

14% relative humidity in our home.

Nice looking! You have vents right? For air exchange?

I am with ya, put my eggs in on March 10th and today is supposed to be hatch day. Lots of movement all around the incubator but so far no pipping or peeping. Have not tried to candle or tap, going to wait at least till tomorrow if not longer as i dont want to mess with them if they are slow to hatch!!!!! Been checking every half an hour or so all day!

Hello AmyLynn and thanks. I think there is enough airflow. I followed build instructions for drilling 2 holes in each side down low and have two 1/2 inch vent holes on the top holes covered. You can see light under the lid so I know there is air exchange there too and the fan runs all the time. Whether or not these hatch I plan on trying again with stone tiles on the bottom for a heat sink.
My big worry is the time they spent in our new store bought incubator until I gave up on the wild temperature swings each afternoon with the wafer thermostat. I don't think they work very well at high elevation.
So worried for the chicks and waiting for a pip.
I did candle them before lockdown and several were dead and partly formed.

Fingers crossed. Jocelyn

daisygirlfp said:

Hello AmyLynn and thanks. I think there is enough airflow. I followed build instructions for drilling 2 holes in each side down low and have two 1/2 inch vent holes on the top holes covered. You can see light under the lid so I know there is air exchange there too and the fan runs all the time. Whether or not these hatch I plan on trying again with stone tiles on the bottom for a heat sink.
My big worry is the time they spent in our new store bought incubator until I gave up on the wild temperature swings each afternoon with the wafer thermostat. I don't think they work very well at high elevation.
So worried for the chicks and waiting for a pip.
I did candle them before lockdown and several were dead and partly formed.

Fingers crossed. Jocelyn

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Hatching at a high altitude is trickier.

Good luck with your pips-to-be!

When my husband watched the egg being water candled go still then give a big twitch he was quite surprised!

This is a graph of our atmospheric pressure. I think this is why I had so much trouble with the wafer thermostat.

Day 22 and the egg I checked this morning (water candled) had a live chick inside. I am going to wait until tonight to decide what to do. It will be the completion of day 22 and the beginning of day 23.
These eggs had several incidents of wild temperature swings in a styro tabletop unit until I moved them into this homemade incubator. I returned the styrofoam tabletop and will start the next group directly in this digitally controlled incubator that has a computer fan. I'm also going to add more air vents thanks to the comment by AmyLynn2374.
Preparing for disappointment.

Set on a Wednesday and finished hatching 3 weeks plus and on a Friday, finishing Friday late. Not a great percentage but really cute April Fools Day chicks. Already setting a new batch in my homemade incubator from the start this time. I'm at the lower end of the learning curve but climbing steadily.

daisygirlfp said:

Set on a Wednesday and finished hatching 3 weeks plus and on a Friday, finishing Friday late. Not a great percentage but really cute April Fools Day chicks. Already setting a new batch in my homemade incubator from the start this time. I'm at the lower end of the learning curve but climbing steadily.

Click to expand...

Congrats! They look great!