Chicks Dead In Shell

[JustAChickenLittle&More]

ok, so my last hatch was due on last thursday and friday. I had 5 live chicks hatch. I waited until today to see if anymore would pip. None did, so I broke them open. There were like 9 that didn't hatch. 5 were not fertile and the rest had fully developed dead chicks. Any idea what would cause that? Were they just not strong enough to pip and get out?

 

[chickee]

I had this problem and it turns out that my hygrometer wasn't accurate and my humidity ran too high during incubation. This caused the chicks to grow too big and couldn't turn in the shell to hatch. I did the salt test on my hygrometer (Exo Terra reptile hygrometer) and found that it had been reading 10% low, so of course I upped the humidity and had many dead chicks in the shell! I just hatched out two batches of chicks with 100% hatch rate since adjusting my hygrometer/humidity. Good luck with your next hatches!

JustAChickenLittle&More :

ok, so my last hatch was due on last thursday and friday. I had 5 live chicks hatch. I waited until today to see if anymore would pip. None did, so I broke them open. There were like 9 that didn't hatch. 5 were not fertile and the rest had fully developed dead chicks. Any idea what would cause that? Were they just not strong enough to pip and get out?

 

[Baralak]

http://www.poultry.msstate.edu/extension/pdf/troubleshooting_incubation.pdf

Here is a Incubation Troubleshooting document to read.

 

[BlackBrookPoultry]

It could be many things including:
Wrong humidity during the incubation
Eggs chilled or overheated during last 5 days of incubation
Low humidity during the hatch causing the eggs membranes to dry out
Poor ventilation during hatch
Disturbances during hatch