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The only way that they will drown on their side is if the humidity was too high over the average of the incubation and the eggs did not loose enough moisture. Either monitoring and marking the air cell or weighing the eggs will help you keep track of that. If the air cells are too small and not enough moisture has left the egg, then it is better to hatch upright because it MAY prevent extra moisture seeping into the air cell at pip and causing the chick to drown. You can read more bout the humidity and air cells size here: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity
What are you comparing that thermometer to? Unless you've calibrated it, you have no idea if it is accurate. For still air, 101 - 102 measured at top of eggs is required. Less than that can give you chicks that don't develop well. Your results with the first hatch indicated that temp was too low. If you were having a hard time getting your humidity down in the first hatch without adding water, I'm guessing that you didn't have enough ventilation in the bator, even with all of those holes. You might need to make some bigger holes. But, if you had water in the bator throughout the first hatch, that would definitely be a problem for getting the humidity down! Wishing you the best with your second hatch.
Just make sure when you hatch upright, keep an eye at the bottom of the eggs for any malepositioned pips because they are harder to see and it's easier for them to run into problems upright. Unless you have a hands off approach, then it doesn't matter. Good luck. Hope to hear good things!
You poor hatcher trying to go by everyone's advice.
I did an Easter hatch last year with eggs I bought from a local gal. I really wanted eggs out of her silkie pen because she had a SG in there but the silkies weren't laying well and I ended up with only 3 from her silkie pen. Out of 36 that went into lockdown, only 3 did not make it. One of those three hatched, but only with in like 4 hours of pipping and still had a fully functioning vascular system between egg and chick and a ruptured yolk sac. The other two made it all the way to day 19/20 and shrink wrapped tight (I have pics). All her other birds were laying well and hatched perfectly, including Spitzhaubens and black Jap bantams (the rest were mixes). I would put money on the fact that they were laying low quality eggs because of time of year and they weren't regular in their cycle. I vowed I would never buy eggs again unless the birds were laying regularly. So I do think time of year makes a difference- to a certain extent. Plus you have the fact that fertility is often lower during cold winter.I have been rereading your posts rimullins. You said you had been using your own eggs to hatch and I wanted to share my first hatch last weekend. I started out with 28 eggs. Only 15 made it to lockdown. All 15 had live chicks at lockdown. But only 9 of them hatched. The others failed to pip. I think when eggs are collected in January the breeders aren't in top physical condition. Mine had been confined a lot during December and January. The health and age of the breeders has a lot to do with the ability of the chicks to hatch. It's very possible that you didn't do anything wrong.
I have another bunch of eggs incubating now. Out of 33 eggs that I started with only 21 appear to be developing. Hopefully a better percentage of these will actually hatch.
I don't think laying the eggs on their side caused your chicks to drown. I always lay mine on the side. But what is important is to candle them before laying them on their side. The air cell will dip down one side of the egg and this should on the up side of the egg when it is laid in the incubator. This way when the chick internally pips the beak will be in the air cell.
Good luck.
