Chicks not hatching... developed but yolk not absorbed?

[isis]

So, I've had a couple of chicks and a couple of ducks from the came hatch that were alive up to and past hatching time... but NEVER absorbed their yolk. I even tried to help one of the chicks out but there was too much blood in the membrane (so I left him, he lived 3 days after my trying to jailbreak him 1 day after his due date, never tried to get out of the egg then eventually died.

I didn't break open the other chick but know he was alive and moving in the shell on lockdown. The ducks were due a week ago, they were fully developed but same thing, no yolk absorbed and no attempt to pip (one duck had just recently died, his blood was still tinted red). NONE of these chicks/ducks even broke into the air cell.

I had a bad thermometer the first 5 days, so my temp was 10 degrees low. Other then that the basic rules were followed.
Is that the only thing that caused this or is there something else that can cause the yolk not to absorb? I also hand turned... which I didn't have luck with years ago, but did well with a turner... (the turner is back in for my new batch today!)

 

[yinepu]

ok.. first a few facts you need to consider:
when a chick first pips the shell their yolk sack isn't fully absorbed..

when a chick dies in the shell before pipping it's natural for the yolk to still be outside of the chick's body..

if you try to assist a chick before it's ready it can also have the yolk unabsorbed...

Now..
I think the main thing you need to do is figure out why the hatch failed (humidity, temperature, bacteria and so on) and not worry about the unabsorbed yolk since it's normal for the chicks to wait to absorb them just as they are hatching..
Once you figure out why the hatch failed.. then the next chicks should be fine if you correct whatever went wrong

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Ditto to everything that yinepu said.

But this

I had a bad thermometer the first 5 days, so my temp was 10 degrees low.

Probably had a lot to do with it. Ten degrees low for that long is going to seriously throw embryonic development out of whack.

 

[isis]

I just candled my next batch and ALL 10 eggs look great and have movement! I also had 4 ducks eggs put in at the same time, 2 good and moving, 1 infertile and 1 maybe day 3 quiter... Hopefully it was just the temp. That first batch started with 20 chicken eggs and only those 2 made it that far, yikes!

Okay, it sounds like it was just the original temp that did them in (totally disappointing!). I'm very careful about watching temps and humidity, I even switched to a thermometer that tracks the high and low temp each day so there aren't any changes that I don't know about. That is the handiest thing