9 eggs made it to lockdown, 3 hatched. Why?

[Chicharron]

So I set 12 cream legbar eggs in my Kebbonix incubator which has done well for me before. Three were infertile. Nine made it to lockdown, all moving, good healthy veins.

Late on day 19, four had pipped externally. The next morning, one had hatched. Two others hatched on day 21.

A day later, the remaining two hadn't made any progress. I checked one egg only to find that the chick had died. This was the first time I opened the incubator since lockdown so it couldn't be shrinkwrap, and the chick could breathe, so I'm puzzled. I cracked open the egg and the chick seemed perfectly normal, not sticky, no liquid.

The other chick was still alive. Fearing it too would die since it was making no progress after about 30 hours, I carefully broke open the shell. The chick was so weak that it didn't try to get out and its eyes kept closing. Put it back in the bator half in the shell, it finally worked its way out hours later. It's healthy and running around now.

Candled the other eggs, no movement, no internal pips, some still had veins. One had what looked like blood pooling against the air cell. Left in the bator a couple more days, none hatched. What on earth happened?

Temp was 99.5 throughout, verified by thermometer. Humidity days 1-18 ranged from 25% to 40% although it rarely got that high. For lockdown it was 60% to 80%. Incubator auto turner was busted so I had to turn by hand, which I did 3 times a day. I have other eggs setting now due to hatching in a week so I need to know what went wrong.

 

[Debbie292d]

Some say opening the incubator daily or several times a day doesn't hurt them. I personally disagree with that. Can you get the turner fixed? Or, at least, the last entire week they really don't need turning. Most just do a 3-day lockdown. I do 5-day. 7-day can be safely done too as the first two weeks are the important ones for turning.

The other thing that could be at issue is the parents of the eggs. Are these from the same source as all of the others you've hatched?

I've hatched dozens of hatches this past year and had a couple along the way that died after lockdown that I didn't think should have. No explanation other than perhaps it had something wrong with it.

I keep humidity 40 to 50% until lockdown, then 70%.

 

[Chicharron]

Yeah these are my own eggs, I've hatched out chicks from the parents a few times, no problems before. I did stop turning the last 3 1/2 days. Now that I think of it, maybe opening the incubator to turn several times a day wasn't good. But you'd think they would have died before lockdown if they were going to. Such a mystery.

 

[mcdze]

opening the bator doesnt hurt anything ...youre right though its a mystery when that happens and likely a combination of factors that lead to one common denominator ive observed over many hatches - they pip and it doesnt progress steadily, in other words they 'stall' for too long and wind up giving up and shutting down .. the more energetic they are the less that happens, healthy parents, turn the heat up 1/2* during the process, have alittle noise going on, some light, etc ..