Assist hatching vs Natural hatching?

[BantyChooks]

If you have to assist all your eggs, it seems like you're either doing it unnecessarily, you have terribly weak genetics in your birds, or your incubation techniques are incorrect. I don't oppose it in the slightest, I'm just a bit alarmed that you need to assist that frequently and wonder if maybe you could reduce that rate? There are several physical changes that chicks undergo during the hatching process that are beneficial to the bird that don't happen if they're helped out. (Necessary, no; just beneficial, particularly in a scientific sense.)

I personally have an egg that needs assisting once every few hatches, as a general rule. The others all hatch by themselves. Once they pip internally, there's a lot of flexibility in the time they have to hatch; certainly enough to catch any shrink-wrapped individuals without doing preventative assists on all.
I just had a button quail hatch finish up a few days ago. One of them was wedged in there pretty tight. I popped him out and he's doing well now. If I know I can save one, I won't leave it to die, but I also will remove that bird from all future breeding operations unless I am certain it was my fault incubator-wise.

 

[Gray Farms]

I try not to assist when hatching. But I do it every year anyhow lol. And they never seem to make it. Even if they get going the never really thrive and eventually die anyhow.

 

[LunaMarieWolf]

How many eggs have you set?


What incubator do you use?
Do you have a calibrate calibrated thermometer and humidity gauge in the bator?

How often do you turn the eggs while their incubating?

I have a Brinsea mini 2 advanced that auto turns. I also have an intelligent incubator 24. They both auto turn the eggs. I have the Brinsea set to turn the eggs every 40 mins. Then I take the egg turners out for both on day 18.

The temp for the 24 incubator is 37.7 Celsius ans the humidity is set for 45 until day 18, then up to 65 for the rest of the hatch.

The 24 incubator is set to be that temp and humidity. It sounds an alarm if the humidty gets below 45. And it it gets above 50 before day 18.

I have set a total of.. maybe around 50. The last almost 2 years I have been doing this.

I have maybe hatched around 40 due to infertile eggs and a few embroys die in the egg.

 

[LunaMarieWolf]

If you have to assist all your eggs, it seems like you're either doing it unnecessarily, you have terribly weak genetics in your birds, or your incubation techniques are incorrect. I don't oppose it in the slightest, I'm just a bit alarmed that you need to assist that frequently and wonder if maybe you could reduce that rate? There are several physical changes that chicks undergo during the hatching process that are beneficial to the bird that don't happen if they're helped out. (Necessary, no; just beneficial, particularly in a scientific sense.)

I personally have an egg that needs assisting once every few hatches, as a general rule. The others all hatch by themselves. Once they pip internally, there's a lot of flexibility in the time they have to hatch; certainly enough to catch any shrink-wrapped individuals without doing preventative assists on all.
I just had a button quail hatch finish up a few days ago. One of them was wedged in there pretty tight. I popped him out and he's doing well now. If I know I can save one, I won't leave it to die, but I also will remove that bird from all future breeding operations unless I am certain it was my fault incubator-wise.

I did have a few chicks that just didn't seem to make it. The eggs I collected from the hens, the chicks always died by day 16.

I have restarted my enitre flock almost. I have just 1 hen from the flock I really incubated eggs from. This clutch that finished hatching out was almost all from my new hens. And still a chick died.

I replaced all the hens, got new roos. Even changed up their diets and let them free range a bigger area.

I also bought a new incubator (Intelligent Incubator 24) just incase it was the incubator I was using.

Still a chick died.

Maybe it is my incubators .

I just feel better with assist hatching rather than letting them hatch unassisted.

 

[BantyChooks]

I did have a few chicks that just didn't seem to make it. The eggs I collected from the hens, the chicks always died by day 16.

I have restarted my enitre flock almost. I have just 1 hen from the flock I really incubated eggs from. This clutch that finished hatching out was almost all from my new hens. And still a chick died.

I replaced all the hens, got new roos. Even changed up their diets and let them free range a bigger area.

I also bought a new incubator (Intelligent Incubator 24) just incase it was the incubator I was using.

Still a chick died.

Maybe it is my incubators .

I just feel better with assist hatching rather than letting them hatch unassisted.

Well, that's a real bummer. I would suspect something wrong with incubation... but hey, what you're doing seems to work for you.