I don't use a pre-breeding feed for my adults but I always give them a quality feed year around. It is possible for poor nutrition in the adults to cause poor hatches or problems with newly hatched poults. Poor genetics can also cause problems. Leg issues can be nutrition caused, genetics caused or even incubation problems.Good morning..
I had 6 bug eyed babies hatch yesterday....This is not a good year for hatches for me. I think it might have finally dawned on me what is wrong.
I have had poor hatch rates, lots of quitters and the poults are weak, of the 6, 2 will have to be euthanized. They are having joint problems they can not or barely walk. They seem okay at hatch then a day or two later the legs seem to stop working properly.
I think it is a combination of things.
First, I am hatching earlier than normal, about now is when I start to hatch most years.
Second I normally use a pre-breeding turkey feed for my adults. I decided to skimp out this year, because I was being cheap with too many birds to feed, and they started laying before I start the feed. I normally start it in January to give them a month or two to condition them.
Third my moisture content plunged then peaked this hatch. The float stopped working and I did not notice it, when I did I replaced it and forgot to cover have the tray to slow evaporation...(old age senility setting in)..
Next year I will do it different, I will have my breeders in pens without chickens. I will have the none breeders either in the freezer in November and eat frozen turkey instead of fresh at the holidays. I hate feeding expensive breeder turkey formula to the chickens. I will treat the turkey breeders like I do my show chickens. Individual pens and only the breeders will be fed the "good stuff".
R2elk, does this sound plausible, or do you think it could be something else? (like too many years with inbreeding?)
On the bright side I have another polka dot! 2 browns and one black that are healthy. I did not plant any RP eggs this time. I have a decent blue slate coming up, at about 2 months. I might even show him/her. It has been upstairs to watch TV in preparation for cage training.
I will add pictures as an edit from my Iphone in a minute.View attachment 1735821View attachment 1735822
I saved you the pain of seeing the cripples...I need to run to town to get some sleeping vaporous gas for them... I used my last little bit to start a stubborn engine...silly me.
Your humidity issue may or may not have caused a problem although high humidity tends to cause more problems than low humidity. Since you don't normally candle often enough to verify the proper increase in air cell size, there is no way to tell if the humidity was an actual issue. I tend to think it may have had an insignificant effect.
One possible issue is that temperatures that the eggs have been in can adversely affect a hatch. My research shows that 27°F will kill the embryo. Any eggs that have been exposed to temperatures below 27°F should not even be set.
I do tend to bring in new bloodlines from time to time to avoid too much inbreeding. I try to avoid the brother/sister breeding but do use linebreeding.