Chicks/poults dying in lockdown

[pattijoiner]

Hey everyone, I am at my wits end with this! I have a Farmers innovation incubator that I fill with eggs. They look healthy at all stages and I move them to my hatcher which is a Nurture rite 360.
75% of the eggs die during lockdown or right after internally pipping. I do dry hatch so it stays about 25% humidity then when I transfer over, I have tried the humidity at 60%. I’ve gone up to 80% and everywhere in between.
I’ve lowered the temp by a degree or two as humidity goes up (as advised by a great article on this site). I’ve also slowly raised humidity at lockdown, and put the eggs in thee a few days before lockdown to maybe get used to the environment in there? Air sacs are great looking.
I’ve tried everything and I’m so tired of losing eggs.
At first I thought maybe it was a genetic defect in one of my turkey hens, but it does it with chicks too.

I have 3 different thermometers in the nurture rite so I’m watching the temps the best I possibly can.

Anyone have any advice ? The last thing to try is letting them hatch in the farmers innovator. I usually have multiple batches in there with different dates so I’ll need to wait until I’m down to one.
Thanks!

 

[Debbie292d]

I honestly have no idea as though I've never dry hatched, and never would, still, you've tried it the normal way that I do it and I've moved over 400 silkie chicken eggs this year to a lockdown incubator just fine. In fact, there's some due in two days in there right now.

The only thing I can possibly think of is sterilization. If there's something going on with your hatcher and germs?

I'm a creature of habit:

99.5F the entire time.

45% humidity until lockdown, then 65-70%. I lockdown at 4 or 5 days.

 

[pattijoiner]

I honestly have no idea as though I've never dry hatched, and never would, still, you've tried it the normal way that I do it and I've moved over 400 silkie chicken eggs this year to a lockdown incubator just fine. In fact, there's some due in two days in there right now.

The only thing I can possibly think of is sterilization. If there's something going on with your hatcher and germs?

I'm a creature of habit:

99.5F the entire time.

45% humidity until lockdown, then 65-70%. I lockdown at 4 or 5 days.

The nurture rite is horrible to clean lol but after every hatch, I let the bottom soak with hot water and dawn and a touch of bleach and rinse ALOT. I wipe down the lid with alcohol. I don’t understand it, everyone has amazing results with the nurture rite and it seems to kill all mine
I wonder if I did some more humidity while developing There wouldn’t be such a shock when moved over ?

 

[LaFleche]

The nurture rite is horrible to clean lol but after every hatch, I let the bottom soak with hot water and dawn and a touch of bleach and rinse ALOT. I wipe down the lid with alcohol. I don’t understand it, everyone has amazing results with the nurture rite and it seems to kill all mine
I wonder if I did some more humidity while developing There wouldn’t be such a shock when moved over ?

Did you recentlymaybe have some kind of respiratory infection going through your flock recently?

Did you have your flock checked for salmonella and blackhead?

 

[Tex452]

I’ve had a 93% hatch rate with my NR 360 incubators, I do 100% dry hatch, the chicks hatch out very easily and are very healthy.
I’m in a high humidity area, it’s stays around 40% during incubation, and when the chicks start hatching it jumped to 88%.
I don’t candle but one time and that’s when I lock them down, I don’t open the incubator before then.
My cousin was having the exact same problem, she’s trying the dry hatch now with some guinea eggs.
She has a NR 360.
I have her chicken eggs in one of mine now, they supposed to hatch this weekend.
I hope you can get it figured out.

 

[pattijoiner]

I’ve had a 93% hatch rate with my NR 360 incubators, I do 100% dry hatch, the chicks hatch out very easily and are very healthy.
I’m in a high humidity area, it’s stays around 40% during incubation, and when the chicks start hatching it jumped to 88%.
I don’t candle but one time and that’s when I lock them down, I don’t open the incubator before then.
My cousin was having the exact same problem, she’s trying the dry hatch now with some guinea eggs.
She has a NR 360.
I have her chicken eggs in one of mine now, they supposed to hatch this weekend.
I hope you can get it figured out.

I haven’t tried dry hatching all the way…..

 

[pattijoiner]

Did you recentlymaybe have some kind of respiratory infection going through your flock recently?

Did you have your flock checked for salmonella and blackhead?

I haven’t had them checked but no outbreak

 

[Debbie292d]

The nurture rite is horrible to clean lol but after every hatch, I let the bottom soak with hot water and dawn and a touch of bleach and rinse ALOT. I wipe down the lid with alcohol. I don’t understand it, everyone has amazing results with the nurture rite and it seems to kill all mine
I wonder if I did some more humidity while developing There wouldn’t be such a shock when moved over ?

Humidity is an average, and it should average around 45% or so the entire time up until lockdown. Then it should average 70% or so, but my Brinseas are accurate so I set it them to 45 and 70 and it keeps them there. Moving them from one incubator to another does nothing adverse to them.

Since it seems you are sterilizing it well, then I liked @LaFleche's thinking as I'm out of ideas here for what else is wrong.

How about recalibrating your hygrometer/thermometer. Maybe that's off?