Wynette and Marquisella, thanks for the input. Other breeds are hatching well and I have triplicate thermometers/hygrometers and I have come to LOVE the monsterbator even though it's an enormous( 1200 egg) beast.
We will look into the higher nutrition aspect. I am very familiar with different dairy cattle breeds and one should ideally feed Jerseys much differently than the Holsteins for best results. We started fermenting their scratch grains and add very very little corn, and they think it's crack. Have not yet tried fermenting the layer pellets but that may be the next step. Or adding calf manna
The most puzzling aspect is that the darker the egg, the worse the hatch rate, and the darker eggs are from the healthiest- looking hens. ( Healthier looking only because the young roo prefers the hens his own age and they look it!)
As an experiment, I just sanded a batch that I added today. We shall see what three weeks brings. Blue and Greens added as controls in the hatch.
thanks again. I am determined to find the problem.
I live very close to you, so our altitude and humidity is similar. I also had similar problems early on myself. I used some of the advice from people here and have greatly improved most of my hatches. I run humidity around 35 to 40 for the first 18 days and bump it up to at least 70 until the first chick emerges, humidity levels spike once they start hatching. Sometimes it's so high that I see condensation on the windows of the incubator. The only problem I run into with such high humidity at the end of a hatch is that the chicks may not dry quickly while in the incubator.
This time of the year it can become difficult to keep the humidity down in the beginning as our relative humidity can be very high with the rains. I also keep my incubators in my basement because the temperature is much more consistant than in the rest of the house.
Hope this help some,,, good luck with your next batch !
p.s. Nice to have another Marans person closeby
