Everything was going so good !!

[theshoenlebens]

Hi, I had 2 dozen eggs in my first time incubator try and things started great. I had 8 chicks in the brooder last night and more hatching so I left them in the bator over night.

This morning I had 6 chicks and left them in there till I returned home from work. When I got home I had 5 dead chicks, 3 alive and all the rest of the partial hatched eggs(chicks) dead.

I opened the dead eggs and all but two had dead chicks inside. The humidity was 80%, was this the issue or ???

I'm happy with the start but still discouraged some on how it ended. Help me find an answer so my next run will have a better outcome.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Check out this link. I think it is pretty good about stuff like this. There are often many possible reasons.

Illinois Incubation troubleshooting
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/eggs/res24-05.html

In general, if they die in the first week of incubation, it’s because of something that happened before the eggs went in the incubator. If they die in the last week if incubation, it’s because of something that happened during the actual incubation.

Did you have the plugs out? Was fresh air circulating? One possible cause is because of a lack of fresh air, they suffocated. Too hot or too cold could be a problem too, but did that really change? Since you had several hatch I don’t think it was humidity. I’m betting on air quality but I’m a long way away across the internet.

Good luck on figuring it out. You obviously did a whole lot right.