Day 22 and chicks not hatching

[joebryant]

What could be wrong? This is the fourth day since I stopped the 24 eggs from turning in the incubator. On day 21 one chick punched out a small hole in the shell and is tapping it more now, but the other eggs are showing nothing's being done by any other chicks. Is it normal for the chicks not to hatch for 22 - 24 days.
BTW, the humidity in the humidifier was in the seventies during all that continuous rain we had for a week, and there was no way for me to lower it. It's now in the low seventies.

 

[joebryant]

Ooops! I hit quote instead of edit and had to delete everything in this section.

 

[ranchhand]

Are you sure the day count is correct?
Are they all developed, have you candled?
That high humidity worries me, it could be they are drowning when they poke into the air cell.
I don't know if there's anything you can do if that's the case.

Hope it works out.

 

[lux_interior]

I wish I could help, I had 2 chicks hatch saturday which was day 20, and since then, none of the rest of my eggs have done anything.... it's now day 23..... I'm going to pitch them today, I was hoping for more hatches

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Had I known that the high humidity in the air during the continous rain day after day was dangerous, I'd've turned on the air conditioner. That would have lowered the humidity in the room.
It's possible that it could be the rooster's fault too, but I doubt it.

 

[lux_interior]

I just opened my remaining eggs, I had 6 fully formed chicks who were dead in the shell. They never pipped..... We've had lots of rain and high humidity here too...... they may have drowned

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Sorry about that.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Sorry about that.

Final results:
Only one chick hatched out of 24 eggs. I''ve never had such disasterous results. After four days, I removed all the eggs and opened them, and about three-fourths of them had begun to develop chicks. About half of those had almost fully developed chicks that had died in the shell. I'm almost sure that they drowned when we were having continuous rain with hot days. I'm thinking that incubating eggs in the summer is a whole lot different than incubating in the coolness of spring when the furnace is running.

I'm starting over with 32 eggs, and I will have the air conditioner turned on when/if the houses humidity is high (like in the 60's or 70's) except for the last three days.

 

[joanie_maine]

Just goes to show how important incubator humidity level is.

Too wet can be a disaster. I always shoot for 50% or LESS.

Thanks for sharing your experience and let us know what happens with your next brood!

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
When you say, "...50% or less...", do you mean days 1-18 or all 21 days?