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I also think that the low hatch rates may be more of what I was experiencing: immature fellows. I have a bunch of pairings that are dudes waaaaaaay too unsure of themselves with older ladies. It proved to be tragically ineffective when the time came to candle. Not many fertiles. Then there was the incubator failure...and the cursed hatch struck nearly all of us this time! Perhaps it was God's way of saving many marriages in short order?!?
That last part had me laughing!!!!
This is all very interesting about the humidity. Thank you both and Bhep (I think it was) who replied earlier. I am definitely going to try dry hatching next time or 2, or maybe as a test,with half the eggs of the next couple of batches. (it seems that SOMEHOW I have ordered a few more batches of eggs, heh heh--this is SO much fun!!!) I am going to have to scour the net to see if I find any mention of the lowering of temp the last 3 days. I do have a batch of bantam ameraucanas from LittleAmeraucanaMom hatching now, and I followed the lowering temp for last 3 days directions and have it at 99.5 or so...this is the Still Air one. Before lockdown, they were in a forced air RollX at 99.7 or so. These guys are hatching on day 19, and so far it looks great, 9 out of shells but more may be coming, out of 18 eggs. Chookschick, I erased too much of my lengthy quote above and by mistake erased your part about temp so I can't see it as I write this. I need to go back and look, but do you use 99.5 to 100 regardless of whether your incubator is still or forced air? Are most dead in shells chicks from too high humidity, or were you able to tell that when you inspected them? I suppose I should read up on how to diagnose incubation problems by inspecting the unhatched dead but developed chicks.
I also started doing a dry hatch until lockdown, but I also have a little spray bottle to spray the eggs every other day, or when ever I remember, I haven't done a hatch without spraying, so IDK if it really makes a difference. Its also good if you need to rise the humidity during lockdown, or if you have a shrinkwraped chick.
I think the reason my hatch was so bad was because the power went out for a few hours around day 2-3. It killed most of the eggs, when I candled at day 10, most just have a small amout of veining, 2 made it to lockdown, but it looks like they dyed around day 17-18. This was my worst overall hatch (0/38). They were all shipped eggs. I've had a set of shipped eggs not hatch before, but I always had other eggs (mine or shipped) that hatched.