only 11 of 26 fertile eggs hatched in 'bator

Hello Deb, What is your incubator manufacturer?
When you candled,  was the air cell growth in the range that is recommended for the time period?
Are you using a hydrometer to read moisture? I would highly recommend one if not. For me I weigh the eggs every few days. If you weigh each egg before incubation and document the weigh loss during the 21 days you should reach a 15% weight loss. So for a 100 gram egg by day 20 it should weigh close to 85 grams. You would plot a line from day one to day 20, and each time you weigh,  it should be close to the plot line,  if not adjust the humidity to either slow the weight of evaporation or quicken it.

Best regards

Unfortunately I am inclined to agree. It was definately a humidty issue. All you can do is learn from experience. Location (ie: in the south or far north) has a lot to do with your natural humidty or dryness. It takes trial and error for most to perfect it. Good luck and don't give up

Iv'e alway's heard that 50% is a good number to hatch from incubating. sounds like you are pretty close to those odds. I just incubated 36 and now have only 19 baby chicks. I took 2 out at day 14 after candeling. 11 didn't hatch. 3 that did hatch did not make it past the fourth day. I did crack the ones open that did not hatch, and they all had what looked like fully developed chicks in them. I plan to about a dozen more in the next week or two and start again.....

                      Joe

Sometimes it depends on the eggs too. I accidentally hatched  out a dozen peepers out of 15 fertile eggs checked on day 14. Let's just say temps were 1 degree too high for the entire duration of incubation, the turner was never shut off, and humidity was at like 40 for the whole process. Silly yet when I took care of a set of eggs for hatching, followed directions and turned as directed, I've gotten lower hatches than that! Good luck next time!