Causes of poor hatch ideas?

[kmpcfp]

I set 12 eggs that were a mix of easter eggers, BCM and their crosses that I happened to get from a local small farm. 10 started developing. 6 made it to lock down. Of those 6, 2 never hatched. On autopsy, one was a super thick shelled Marans with a way too small air cell that was malpositioned and never internally pipped (beak above wing). The other no-hatcher OE had an ideal sized air cell and was positioned correctly, but never pipped and the yolk was not fully absorbed. Three that did hatch all pipped on the wrong end and had a decent-small sized air cell (1 BCM and two 2 EE). Only one (an OE) hatched "correctly" with a good air cell. The ones that did hatch all hatched on day 21as expected.

I have never had a hatch this poor before. My last hatch had 100% of those that were fertilized. I have never had this many pip incorrectly or die sometime after day 10 development.

I use a homemade forced-air incubator that runs between 99-100. I manually turn 3x day. Humidity runs about 35% (I know this is lower than most but I try to judge more by air cell size than given number especially when hatching different breeds at same time). During lockdown I bump it up to 60% or so. The eggs were not washed, and were visibly clean. My incubator was disinfected after the last time it was used.

This is the first time I have done a fall hatch.

Or could this just be poor parent stock?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll let you look through these, you might see something that you think applies.

Incubation Troubleshooting - Incubation and Embryology - University of Illinois Extension

Trouble Shooting Failures with Egg Incubation | Mississippi State University Extension Service (msstate.edu)

Common Incubation Problems: Causes and Remedies (ucanr.edu)

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Kudos for trying to troubleshoot. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to pinpoint a single reason for a disappointing hatch because I suspect that there may be multiple contributing factors. I routinely hatch very dark-shelled BCM eggs, as well as olive eggs descended from the BCM.

I also only do dry hatches with the dark eggs, as I've learned that they definitely don't lose moisture normally. My "dry" can be as low as not adding any water at all to the incubator and only bumping it up once I see an external pip. There are other methods to help very dark eggs lose moisture during incubation, if needed, like sanding part of the shell in a specific pattern to remove sections of bloom. You may want to consider adding an autoturner to turn the eggs more often, too.

It's possible that there may be genetic factors at play, as well, but that's probably even more challenging to confirm. I find that eggs can be less apt to hatch at this time of year, probably because hens are beginning to molt and that takes a toll on their overall health. While wrong-end pippers are commonly thought to be the result of improperly set or stored eggs (wrong end up), I've also found that properly stored and set eggs sometimes end up with chicks that pip the wrong end, and they typically need help due to malposition.

I hope this has given you some food for thought. Best of luck!