Troubleshooting incubation issues

[New duck mommy 2021]

My guess is the rollers are not properly turning the eggs. This will lead to death on the embryo
Try setting eggs and hand turning them the next batch and see if that makes a difference
Also move the eggs around instead of staying in the same spot
I do this with mine even if we use the turner so that the cold and hot spots that are in every bator give more equal temps to the egg
Also I only do ducklings and only run 40-45 % humidity till lockdown then jump up to 70-75 for hatch
To high of humidity will cause less moisture loss and can lead to hatching issues

 

[Kiki]

Number one rule when using an incubator:
DO NOT trust the temperature or humidity readings on the incubator itself. They are usually all off/wrong.

Overheating happens ALL the time. The whole incubator may not get too hot but some spots in it can.

Get a few of these and leave them in different spots in your bator for a week before you set eggs again.
KNOWING what the temps are with a trusted thermometer makes all the difference.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=govee+th...116313&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_1a7x4bm0l8_b

 

[Naturalness]

Two little chicks survived the incubation and they hatched healthily, no deformities or anything, no hatching problems, except a very impatient human. 2 out of 20, that's definitely not a great hatchrate but it's also not a complete fail which leaves me even more confused about what's going wrong.

I've got a borrowed incubator now with 11 eggs in it, upright and thus manually turning or rather tilting the whole machine as often as I can remember- about once an hour unless I'm away or asleep. Let's see what happens...

 

[Naturalness]

I'm still trying to research and trouble shoot the issue with this incubator... I bought a govee thermometer and am currently running the incubator without any eggs in it. It looks very stable and correct. I don't think temperature should be the problem, but I'll run it for a bit longer just in case.

I recently read about the importance of turning the eggs forward and backwards as opposed to the same direction constantly, however I'm not sure how much of an effect this could make. All my eggs were always turned in only one direction. I assume this is how most cheap roller incubators work. I imagine more people would have total failures if this killed most embryos... but could this account for the problem?

If so, how often should I change direction, i e. Turn all the eggs facing the other way by hand?

 

[The Moonshiner]

Try running it with your humidity around 35% - 40% for the first 18 days.

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

I'm still trying to research and trouble shoot the issue with this incubator... I bought a govee thermometer and am currently running the incubator without any eggs in it. It looks very stable and correct. I don't think temperature should be the problem, but I'll run it for a bit longer just in case.

I recently read about the importance of turning the eggs forward and backwards as opposed to the same direction constantly, however I'm not sure how much of an effect this could make. All my eggs were always turned in only one direction. I assume this is how most cheap roller incubators work. I imagine more people would have total failures if this killed most embryos... but could this account for the problem?

If so, how often should I change direction, i e. Turn all the eggs facing the other way by hand?

Most tuners go back then forwards not all the way in one direction
I also only go right then back left
I was told that is the proper way
What I’m trying to figure out is how mom ducks or chickens know what way they are turning what egg

 

[Naturalness]

I'm pretty sure this incubator only goes in one direction. I mean maybe it's meant to go both ways but I've only ever seen it turn in one direction. Chinese quality... But would that explain the deplorable results, with most embryos dying around day 6/7? From what I can see the temperature is stable within 0.2C. Even if my humidity was a bit high, that would kill the chicks towards the end of the incubation rather than in the first week, wouldn't it?
Vents were open so there should have been enough o2... that leaves:

A) the turning
B) a mysterious bacteria/virus
C) bad feng shui / black magic ...

 

[Naturalness]

Update: using a borrowed incubator

So I tried hatching a small batch of eggs in a different incubator - a small thing that has the eggs upright and that has worked successfully for my friend. I had to turn the eggs manually which I did by tipping the whole machine 45° from one side to the other.

Out of 6 fertile eggs 5 developed fully, so the old problem did not resurface. However only one hatched... the others never pipped and are now no longer moving in the shell. Its day 23 now. I decided to open one to see if I could detect a problem. I confirmed that it was dead... but couldn't see any other thing that was wrong with it. It was not shrink wrapped or malpositioned. The air bubble was large and situated properly. I'm still hoping for the other eggs but can't see any movement when I candle. It seems there is some kind of cosmic conspiracy to keep me from hatching mire than one or two per batch
I did put the govee thermometer in there for a few days and noticed the temperature was not as high as indicated. It was around 36C most of the time, so lower than it should be.

The other test I'm doing is using my own incubator but turning the eggs by hand and dry incubation . The govee thermometer shows very stable temperatures from 37.5 to 37.8 and fluctuations in humidity from 23 to 33 % from day to night. I'm on day 10 now and there are at least two or three fertile ones in there but some are hard to see through so I'll wait until day 16 to separate out the duds. Then I'll raise the humidity. There are some silkie eggs in there so they might hatch early if they make it. Something tells me I'll probably only hatch one from this batch too though.

 

[Naturalness]

To give a final update for this season: my last hatch was a relative success.

In the same incubator, using the govee thermometer to monitor parameters, I did a dry incubation with Rh between 20 and 35 for the first 15 days then upped to 60. The temperature was relatively stable unless I added water to the bator which could result in strange changes, but nothing dangerous.

I turned by hand, which I think was the crucial point.

Out of 7 eggs 5 were fertile. 4 hatched while one died around day 7 (my estimate). The hatch was much smoother than the ones before.

So my conclusion is that even though I can clearly see eggs turning with the automatic turner, it's not doing it the way it should, and thus has ended up killing batch after batch. In the future, when breeding season starts again (enough daylight to run an incubator on our solar system) I'll be spending my days turning eggs... already looking forward to that.