Atmospheric humidity and broody hens

[TheFatBlueCat]

Hello all,

I have searched for information on if atmospheric humidity effects hatch rates for eggs incubated by a broody hen, but haven't had any luck with that. While it won't make any difference to my practice of only using broodies and not incubators, I'd love to know more.

We have high humidity during chick season here (70% to high 80s most days, with only small drops overnight if at all) which I can't do anything about. I guess if we had low humidity I could try to keep things more moist in the brood nest to raise the levels.

Can anyone share any experiences with this? My hatch rates with local or my own eggs range from 50% to 80%, maybe that rate would be better but I employ survival of the fittest and any egg that didn't hatch by the time the hen leaves the nest with the hatched chicks is disposed of.

 

[nchls school]

I used to live in WI. During the summer it was necessary to mist duck and goose eggs under broody chickens in order for them to hatch. This does not need to be done here in TN where the humidity is higher. Here in TN I have had eggs where the air cells accumulated water causing the chicks/ducklings to drown during pipping.

My suggestion to you is to examine eggs that that have DIS during hatch. If there is a high rate of DIS eggs where the membrane has dried out-humidity is too low. If there's excess liquid in the air cells the humidity is too high and then this knowledge may help you achieve better hatches.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

An update to this post with more information, yes it does affect hatch rates.
I set 18 eggs split between 2 hens, (one experienced, one first timer), and 100% of them failed to hatch. Dead in shell, the air cells did not lose enough moisture. None of them made it to internal pip that I could tell, but this was via candling not opening the eggs. 16 eggs made it almost to full term. 2 were early quitters.
This was a potentially unique situation where the humidity did not drop below the mid 70s at any point day or night during the entire 21 days, and was often in the 80s. It's my only 100% failed hatch, usually I get at least 25% hatch over these sticky hot days but usually the humidity breaks for some of the days.