Discouraged New Chicken Lover

[Robin K.]

I am getting very discouraged. This is the second time I have incubated eggs and I have none that hatched. 7 eggs and nothing. I only had 1 hatch out of the last 6. I now have 14 eggs in the incubator that have 15 days to go. I hope I get something. Any help would be apricated.

 

[chickens really]

What type of incubator?

 

[Rysktal]

I definitely am finding there is a huge learning curve to this chicken thing. Keep trying and learning from everything that happens.

Last year I tried incubating chicken eggs and nothing developed beyond a few days.

My husband tried hatching quail eggs 3 times and only got ONE chick!!

Could be your tools or user error, practice practice practice!

 

[Flockandfowl46]

Don't get discouraged sweety...i would check out a lot of the hatching and incubating forums they should help you considerably

 

[oregonkat]

Essential information needed to help diagnose what the problem is:
Your incubator type, still air, forced air? Are you relying on the incubator instruments to tell you temp and humidity? If so, you MUST get independent, calibrated (by you) instruments in order to be able to tell what is really going on. Many incubator instruments are wrong.
Type of eggs, chicken or duck or.... Shipped or your own or locally sourced?
Dont be discouraged, this chicken thing is both fabulous and exhilarating but also can be heartbreaking. Having knowledge of your instruments is key.
Read this:https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...y-sunshine-bantychooks.1046313/#post-16038469

 

[Robin K.]

I have a Harris Farms Nurture Right 360, 22 egg capacity. I also bought a hydrometer and thermometer to make sure the ones in the incubator are working correctly. Temp is at 99.5 F and 50% humidity.

 

[chickens really]

I have a Harris Farms Nurture Right 360, 22 egg capacity. I also bought a hydrometer and thermometer to make sure the ones in the incubator are working correctly. Temp is at 99.5 F and 50% humidity.

Humidity is too high possibly. I set at 40% and Raise at Lockdown to 60%

 

[Robin K.]

I will try turning down the humidity.
Thanks,

 

[BlackHackle]

I don't know about anyone else, but I have always had bad luck with table top incubators. I always got a 20% hatch with those.
I much more prefer cabinets cause I normally get 90-95% from them

 

[oregonkat]

Your humidity is a little on the high side but I would not think that this was the issue that caused you to have such a low hatch rate. So several questions still, were you incubating shipped eggs? They can be tricky, especially if they had a rough ride getting to you. Does your incubator have a fan or is it still air? If it is still air then your temp was too low, needs to be at around 102degs, if no fan. Were you handling the eggs, candling etc. a lot?