Update. The Great Debate: Is it the incubator or the egg?

[A.T. Hagan]

Part of your problem may lie in the fact that you're using shipped eggs which as you probably know can sometimes have miserable hatch rates. There's not much you can do about that.

But it sounds as though you're experiencing at least one other problem as well.

Have you calibrated the hygrometer you are measuring your humidity with? I've yet to find one that is dead on and have had some be off by as much as fifteen points.

Also, you mention you live in an arid climate where the humidity in your incubator can be as low as 5% if you don't put any water in. Are you also at a highish altitude? I've read in the past where one fellow was hatching at his home in a high desert. He ran his lockdown humidity at 80% because the ambient humidity and air pressure was so low.

If possible I'd try to get some local eggs from a known good source and hatch them to see what your percentage is. Then I'd calibrate the hygrometer if it hasn't been already then I'd try boosting the humidity. Here in Florida where I am I'd never run it so high because it would simply drown the chicks. But in an arid climate, particularly at high altitude, you may need to in order to keep the chick from being shrink wrapped before it can hatch.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

I'm totally confused, because I thought that the H needed to be 55-65% !!!!!!!! I have a bunch in the bator, I hope they don't die!

Not that I am expert here, but the debate about dry incubation vs wet incubation is about as controversial as the debate between doctors on the benefit of taking Aspirin daily to prevent a heart attack. I have read great tutorials from people that claim to hatch two thousand chicks a week using the wet method, and others that claim the same thing that use the dry method. Honestly, if you look at nature, how much humidity is under a hen? How does a hen increase the humidity to 65% during the last three days? I don't know what the truth is here. Honestly, I have failed so far at this, so I am not one to claim I know the way. What I do know is that I have tried both wet and dry incubation techniques with the same result. Now, somebody knows what it takes for successful artificial incubation, because there are huge hatcheries that hatch out millions of chicks each year, and I am sure that they don't run around candling thousands of eggs every few days to see if the air cell is right. So there is a way to do this that works every time. The people on this forum are great people that will give you a lot of good advice, but often times it will contradict what other people on this forum will say, and that can be confusing. What you must remember is that, most of the advice given here is based on circumstantial evidence from personal experience and results.

The best advice I have found here is, "Find what works for you and stick with that". That is not say that the advice here is not good (Hey! I am here asking for advice as well). It is all good, but not all of it may apply to your situation. My philosophy is; "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again, just use cheap eggs until you get it down pat". LOL!

So, if all your eggs drown, try dry incubation next time.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Jingleexporer,
I am not sure if I am reading it right but you say:
" 8 fully developed eggs went into the hatcher and only 3 hatched."

My question is, are you moving the eggs to another unit for lockdown?
This might be your issue..... I have talked to others that use a larger incubator and use Hova-Bators for lockdown to seperate breeds and just because it is easier to clean than the bigger units. Maybe you should leave the eggs in the Hova-Bator for hatching?

I have the Hova-Bator 1588 - althought I have only done one hatch, I had 11\12 hatch and the one that didn't stopped developing very early. These eggs were picked up from a local person.
I followed the directions and filled only #1 tray with water for the first days. (refilling as needed) Temperature comes set at 100 and I lowered it to 99.9. I hand turned 8AM, 6PM and 10PM. At lockdown, I filled all the trays with water, put the lid on and prayed. I had some early birds; on hatch day morning two has already hatched.

Not sure if this helps you at all, but I had success on my very first hatch with the same unit and I am planning on setting a new bunch this weekend. They will be a combination of shipped, local pick up and my hens eggs.

I have two 1588's, one for incubating and one for hatching. Moving the eggs from one to the other is no more stressful then candling the eggs or turning them. I am not surprised at your good result though. I hand turned four eggs that were in the same incubator as 42 other eggs that were in an automatic turner. All of the hand turned eggs developed and three hatched. Only three of the other 42 eggs in the turner hatched. On the former thread I argued that hand turning was better, but I was overwhelmed by people that claimed, and I quote; "Millions of eggs a year are hatch in automatic turners, the turner is not your problem."

Let me know how this batch turns out.

 

[yinepu]

Not that I am expert here, but the debate about dry incubation vs wet incubation is about as controversial as the debate between doctors on the benefit of taking Aspirin daily to prevent a heart attack. I have read great tutorials from people that claim to hatch two thousand chicks a week using the wet method, and others that claim the same thing that use the dry method. Honestly, if you look at nature, how much humidity is under a hen? How does a hen increase the humidity to 65% during the last three days? I don't know what the truth is here. Honestly, I have failed so far at this, so I am not one to claim I know the way. What I do know is that I have tried both wet and dry incubation techniques with the same result. Now, somebody knows what it takes for successful artificial incubation, because there are huge hatcheries that hatch out millions of chicks each year, and I am sure that they don't run around candling thousands of eggs every few days to see if the air cell is right. So there is a way to do this that works every time. The people on this forum are great people that will give you a lot of good advice, but often times it will contradict what other people on this forum will say, and that can be confusing. What you must remember is that, most of the advice given here is based on circumstantial evidence from personal experience and results.

The best advice I have found here is, "Find what works for you and stick with that". That is not say that the advice here is not good (Hey! I am here asking for advice as well). It is all good, but not all of it may apply to your situation. My philosophy is; "If at first you don't succeed, try and try again, just use cheap eggs until you get it down pat". LOL!

So, if all your eggs drown, try dry incubation next time.

Pretty much what Jungle said...

the big difference with commercial hatcheries (and I have worked for a few) is that their incubators and hatchers are BIG (you can walk in them with a few friends and still have room).. plus they are in dedicated buildings full of other incubators all lined up side by side .. so picture a wall of incubators with no space between them... they have their techniques down to a science.. for them incubation is pretty easy since all the buildings are climate controlled (I'm talking about the BIG hatcheries here.. not little Mom & Pop outfits)..

the average person here has a little table top incubator or something a bit bigger.. they can be affected a lot by room temps and humidity.. so what works for one person may not work for another.. however whenever I see a person try over and over with hatching eggs and they end up with bad hatches these are the first things that come to mind:

1) more than likely their humidity is too high (so I recommend a DRY hatch)
2) that they have bacteria in their bator.. even if you do not have any eggs hatch out there will be bacteria growing in the bator.. so after many failed hatches I recommend that they completely disinfect their bators
once the bator is completely disinfected and they are going to dry hatch .. then the next thing is
3) the eggs.. I always recommend that they try hatching out some local eggs along with their own eggs.. that way they can make sure it's not their rooster (or in some cases just bad shipped eggs)

there are many factors that can contribute to a bad hatch.. Assuming they had no temperature issues (spikes of high or low temps).. the main reasons seem to be the humidity being too high, bad eggs, or bacteria (assuming there have been no temp spikes either high or low)

cleaning and disinfecting a bator should be a mater of routine..
using local good eggs will help rule out any issues with infertility or shipped eggs.. especially if the local eggs hatch out and your shipped ones or your home raised ones don't
more people have problems here with drowning chicks than with issues from dry chicks (MOST homes have enough humidity for a dry hatch unless you live in an extremely arid part of the country)

shrink wrapping is caused by to low of humidity (or a fan blowing on a chick) at hatch... the incubation humidity doesn't play a part in shrink wrapping.. it's the HATCH humidity.. since the chicks die before pipping shrink wrapping isn't the problem... so dry incubating won't cause it

the best thing anyone can do with a new bator is to make notes of what their parameters were (temp, humidity, # of eggs set and where they came from, any problems with the chicks & what the hatch rate was..) once they find out what works for them with THAT PARTICULAR incubator in their home.. then they have the battle pretty much won

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Part of your problem may lie in the fact that you're using shipped eggs which as you probably know can sometimes have miserable hatch rates. There's not much you can do about that.
But it sounds as though you're experiencing at least one other problem as well.
Have you calibrated the hygrometer you are measuring your humidity with? I've yet to find one that is dead on and have had some be off by as much as fifteen points.
Also, you mention you live in an arid climate where the humidity in your incubator can be as low as 5% if you don't put any water in. Are you also at a highish altitude? I've read in the past where one fellow was hatching at his home in a high desert. He ran his lockdown humidity at 80% because the ambient humidity and air pressure was so low.
If possible I'd try to get some local eggs from a known good source and hatch them to see what your percentage is. Then I'd calibrate the hygrometer if it hasn't been already then I'd try boosting the humidity. Here in Florida where I am I'd never run it so high because it would simply drown the chicks. But in an arid climate, particularly at high altitude, you may need to in order to keep the chick from being shrink wrapped before it can hatch.

This last batch was all eggs from my chickens. Yes, I calibrated the my four (two digital and two analog) hygrometers using the salt method. There are all within three points of being right on. I live close to Abilene, Texas. The altitude here is about seventeen hundred feet.

1st batch, I ran 55% humidity for 18 days and 70% during lock down. Result= 1 chick out of 24 eggs (shipped).
2nd batch I ran 35% humidity for 18 days and 65% during lock down. Result= 6 chicks out of 46 eggs (shipped).
3rd batch I ran 45% humidity for 18 days and 65% during lock down. Result= 3 chicks out of 15 eggs (from my own flock).

So what do you think the problem is now?

 

[yinepu]

I have two 1588's, one for incubating and one for hatching. Moving the eggs from one to the other is no more stressful then candling the eggs or turning them. I am not surprised at your good result though. I hand turned four eggs that were in the same incubator as 42 other eggs that were in an automatic turner. All of the hand turned eggs developed and three hatched. Only three of the other 42 eggs in the turner hatched. On the former thread I argued that hand turning was better, but I was overwhelmed by people that claimed, and I quote; "Millions of eggs a year are hatch in automatic turners, the turner is not your problem."

Let me know how this batch turns out.

my parents hand turned.. their parents hand turned eggs.. and so on for generations.. they always had excellent hatch rates.. lol.. I come from a LONG line of poultry people

i like a turner for the ease of it.. kind of set it and forget it.. but having said that I have been hand turning several batches of emu eggs for the past several months, plus several batches of turkey eggs and chicken eggs... to me the main things are.. make sure your hands are clean.. wash them with soap (I use antibacterial soap just because I have it on hand and I have so many bators running year round.. no need to introduce more bacteria into the bators) or wear disposable gloves
don't drop or jar the eggs
realize that if you have children "helping" that accidents can happen
remember to turn the eggs (especially during the first week) several times a day

if a person uses a little common sense and some care hand turning works as well or better than an auto turner.. the big difference is that a person needs to be dedicated to turning the eggs if hand turning where an auto turner lets you "set 'em and forget 'em"

 

[yinepu]

This last batch was all eggs from my chickens. Yes, I calibrated the my four (two digital and two analog) hygrometers using the salt method. There are all within three points of being right on. I live close to Abilene, Texas. The altitude here is about seventeen hundred feet.

1st batch, I ran 55% humidity for 18 days and 70% during lock down. Result= 1 chick out of 24 eggs (shipped).
2nd batch I ran 35% humidity for 18 days and 65% during lock down. Result= 6 chicks out of 46 eggs (shipped).
3rd batch I ran 45% humidity for 18 days and 65% during lock down. Result= 3 chicks out of 15 eggs (from my own flock).

So what do you think the problem is now?

do you have a local friend that will let you have a half dozen eggs?

if so.. i would try 6 of their eggs.. plus 6 of yours and dry hatch... if theirs hatch you know it's your eggs that are having fertility issues (not sure what your rooster to hen ratio is)

you had the highest hatch rate from your eggs.. but there still has to be another issue causing you to not reach a 90% hatch rate... I suspect it could be fertility plus humidity

 

[A.T. Hagan]

 


This last batch was all eggs from my chickens.  Yes, I calibrated the my four (two digital and two analog) hygrometers using the salt method.  There are all within three points of being right on.  I live close to Abilene, Texas.  The altitude here is about seventeen hundred feet.  

1st batch, I ran 55% humidity for 18 days and 70% during lock down. Result= 1 chick out of 24 eggs (shipped).
2nd batch I ran 35% humidity for 18 days and 65% during lock down.  Result= 6 chicks out of 46 eggs (shipped).
3rd batch I ran 45% humidity for 18 days and 65% during lock down. Result= 3 chicks out of 15 eggs (from my own flock).

So what do you think the problem is now?

OK, so you've eliminated bad hygrometer readings and it sounds like your ambient environment (where your incubator is located) is stable.

My next suggestions are these:

Thoroughly sanitize the incubator. I wash mine with warm soapy water, rinse thoroughly, then wipe down carefully with a solution of two tablespoons plain laundry bleach in a gallon of warm water. Allow to air dry then close it up and run it empty for a few hours.

Second, get some local eggs from someone else. If it's not a microbial problem in the developing eggs it could be your rooster has poor fertility.

Last, if running conventional humidity doesn't seem to be working then try the dry hatch method. I don't know why but we do have a lot of folks who have good success with it at the same time we have a lot of folks who have equal success running a higher humidity even when they are at more or less the same altitude with the same ambient relative humidities. I suspect though if your calibrated hygrometer is telling you that the humidity inside of your incubator when it's dry is only 5% the solution is to go in the opposite direction.

Failing all else you may have to start doing some breakout analysis to determine what is going wrong inside of the eggs that do not hatch.

Here's one to start with from California Extension:

http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/Avian/pfs32.htm

There are other documents to be found by searching under "hatching egg breakout analysis."

Hatching shipped eggs is introducing a lot of uncertainty so until you get a good hatch I would not work with them. Your best luck has been so far with your own eggs, but even that was poor. Try some local eggs not from your own birds and see what happens. Seventeen hundred feet isn't all that much altitude, but still it may be enough when combined with the fact that your dry incubator runs at only 5% humidity. I suspect you're going to need to run higher than would ordinarily be called for such as 60%+ for days 1-18 then 80% plus for the final three days. After you've sanitized the incubator to remove one more possible variable.

It sounds like you've been careful enough that this is not a (clean) incubator problem, but is coming from somewhere else.

 

[mstricer]

Try putting it in a closet. My hatch rates went up on shipped eggs once I had them in the closet, in the dark. I don't have problems hatching my own eggs. if I set 12, I'm getting 12. Found out the hard way, After many bad hatches of shipped eggs. I put way too many of my own eggs in and got the craziest looking, bunch of birds and all hatched that I set, wasn't ready for that one. I'm doing an all dry hatch right now as a test, hens don't add humidity. I will add a little for lock down but only the 2 wells in plastic tray, just like in directions. We'll see, have 2 more weeks left. No they aren't shipped eggs, those are expensive.
Michele

 

[Jungleexplorer]

After each batch I have washed the incubator with antibacterial detergent. I let the soap stand for over ten minutes to kill any bacteria. I have not used bleach yet, but I will start. But, the incubator was brand new on the first batch and also the third batch. G.Q.F saw the last thread were I was blaming the incubator and sent me a new one. You got to love a company that will help you when you never even contacted them. Now, I did not wash the new incubators. Maybe I should have.

Not that I am questioning the bacteria angle, but have you seen how dirty chickens are? I don't think the underside of a mother hen sitting on a nest is a bacteria free place. I think my problem is either the eggs or the turner. I say this because,on my second batch I even controlled the environment the incubator was in. I have a little 10 by 12 foot cabin for guest. It has climate control and I used a humidistat controlled humidifier to keep the humidity level in the room at 50%. So there was no possibility of temperature or humidity fluctuations. Needles to say, I went all out.

I have about had it up to here with this. I have done everything everyone has told me and nothing works. It has to be the eggs. What else could it be?