Can anyone help improve my hatch rate?

[Fraoch21]

My calibration is not going well, I tried boiling water and it was 2.5 F over and then tried freezing water and it was about 1.5 - 2 F below? might be easier for me to buy a new thermometer, can anyone suggest reliable ones that aren't too costly?

 

[lazy gardener]

Your experience is the exact reason why I don't recommend either method. IMO, they do not provide any information that is pertinent of our goal temp of approx. 100*.

 

[Drewnkat]

Well, for one I would not go by the manual with your incubator. Lots of people run with no plugs in their styrofoam incubators, myself included. In fact, one of my vent holes is occupied with the cord to the computer fan I added to make my incubator a forced-air. Vent plugs should be removed at day 18, when humidity is increased for the hatching process.

Sidenote: computer fans are cheap, super easy to install, and WELL WORTH the trouble for how much benefit they add. No, they do not 100% eliminate thermal variations inside the incubator, but since you're already having troubles that indicate temperature variations are a factor, circulating the air in your incubator cannot hurt anything.

My hygrometer/thermometer is a digital model I got for ten dollars off Amazon.com. I have also seen hygrometers at home improvement/hardware stores (usually in the same section of the store as thermostats, etc.) or pet supply stores with the supplies for lizards and amphibians.

I would not personally run an incubator without a hygrometer. Running low-humidity the first 18 days is a good idea (30-40%, your humidity should not fall much below 30% or they will lose too much liquid and the chicks will not be able to develop). Not adding any water after day 18 is a Very Very Bad Idea. Your shrink-wrapped chicks and fully-developed chicks that died at the point of hatch were most likely due to inadequate humidity. It is critical to have humidity between 65-75% to prevent problems during hatching.

 

[Fraoch21]

Ok thank everyone! I will buy a new thermometer and hyrgrometer, look into getting a fan and up the humidity at hatch time and see how the next hatch goes in 3 weeks time

 

[Fraoch21]

Well I got a new hygrometer/thermometer. The humidity naturally sits at about 35 % and the temp is 38.5C. Set a new lot of eggs and at day 8 there are 14 fertile so fingers crossed!
Meanwhile I have a problem with some other eggs. I set 12 ebay eggs 3 weeks ago and only 2 made it to lockdown so I did everything as normal and nothing happened so on day 22 I opened the eggs a little to see into the air sac to see why they hadn't hatched again, and they're both alive. I've wrapped them in wet tissue to keep humidity right up but its day 23 now, why haven't they hat he'd already, no popping or anything but still alive?

 

[Fraoch21]

Sorry, * why haven't they hatched already, there's no pipping or anything but they are still alive

 

[Fraoch21]

It is now nearly day 24, still no popping from these two eggs but they are still alive and wriggling around

 

[Fraoch21]

Somethings gone wrong again

I had 8 lovely bantam cochins developing really nicely until day 21, 2 hatched fine then nothing...
Opened them all up today and heres the lowdown, one was underdeveloped, one was upside down, 4 were perfectly formed and they're beaks were ready to pip but they never did One was quite squishy but the others were normal. I got a new better thermometer/ hygrometer and the temp was 38.5 throughout, humidity at 40%till day 18 then 50-60%. I am gutted, whats happened?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Somethings gone wrong again

I had 8 lovely bantam cochins developing really nicely until day 21, 2 hatched fine then nothing...
Opened them all up today and heres the lowdown, one was underdeveloped, one was upside down, 4 were perfectly formed and they're beaks were ready to pip but they never did One was quite squishy but the others were normal. I got a new better thermometer/ hygrometer and the temp was 38.5 throughout, humidity at 40%till day 18 then 50-60%. I am gutted, whats happened?

Sorry to hear that. It's possible that the underdeveloped one was sitting in a cold spot and just didn't develop properly. If all your readings are accurate they look good. I personally would shoot for at least 65% for lockdown/hatch. I use 75% myself because I open my bator during hatch, but if you are hands off 65% is usually fine. Were they extremely wet and/sticky? Did you monitor the air cells at all through the hatch?

 

[Fraoch21]

Hi, well I tried to move all the eggs around the incubator so they weren't stuck in cold spots, maybe I missed that one. Ok I will try for higher next time round, I did fill up all the water trays but the humidity just wasn't going up enough so I sprayed a little water in too and if any eggs that had pipped looked a but dry I wrapped them in wet tissue. No they weren't wet or sticky or shrink wrapped, they looked normal. I didn't use weights or calculator but I marked on them and they seemed to be developing fine, one had a really big air sac although the rest were fine