Failed Hatch

[Fluffandfeathers]

So feeling a bit dismal this morning after my first failed batch of pekin bantams, 5 showed development at day 7 and had grown by day 12 so I left them in.

Day 23 and nothing from them at all. Float tested and 2 are possibly viable the others had got to about day 12ish and stopped. I've left the 2 in for now but not hoping for any result.

I was using a friends incubator and to be honest it didn't occur to me that it would be inconsistent with regards to temperature and humidity until late on (to late I think). I used to have a little 3 egg rcom which was always successful, never had to do much with it at all just left it to tick along and topped the water reservoir up frequently.

Once I realised the readings may be wrong I put a seperate digital hygrometer and thermometer in. Humidity was always roughly right and tallied, maybe 1% between them. However temperature was up to 1.5°C colder but varied a lot within that range. Is this likely to be the reason? To cold? It also didn't have any real ventilation, just two small sized grids in the lid.

I have purchased a River Systems Et 24 automatic incubator to try again and am waiting for a replacement seperate thermometer to arrive. This new one has a fan in it, so should there be a difference between the temperature at the egg level and the gauge reading? I am getting neurotic about checking and want to be certain what I am looking for.

Advice gratefully received.

 

[Justso]

Wow, really sorry for your loss! Especially since they were Perkins!
I have incubated shipped eggs twice. The first time one of 12 hatched. The second time three out of nine are viable (not hatched yet!). Things I did differently this time were to have two calibrated thermometers and a calibrated hygrometer. Very easy to do, just look it up online. Another thing I did was to test how to raise or lower the humidity. I used different size cups holding water to see where the humidity level went. It was helpful to know I needed to have a 4-inch diameter water surface in order to achieve 50% humidity. All of this testing took two days, it was worth the peace of mind. Good luck and where are you located?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I think there is a huge learning curve to the point of consistently successful incubation.
Where many go wrong initially, including myself is relying on instruments. Most are wrong. The most important things are precise temperature control, frequent turning, adequate weight loss, using fresh eggs that have been properly collected and stored, enhanced breeder nutrition, incubator fumigation and ventilation.

First of all, one has to start with good fresh eggs packed with enough nutrition to carry the embryos to term. That means good breeder nutrition. Most feeds are adequate for producing eating eggs but not for high hatchability. These numbers may be a little different for ducks but for chickens, nutrient amounts in feed should be 0.5% Methionine, 1% Lysine and 0.75% Cystine, 85 ppm of manganese, 5,000 IU vitamin A, 2500 IU vitamin D, 50 IU vitamin E (the vitamin amounts are per pound). Sufficient riboflavin can prevent curled toes.
When buying shipped eggs, one has no control over breeder nutrition or how old the eggs are before they are shipped. If those numbers aren't on a bag of feed guaranteed analysis tag, you should be able to call the feed company to get the numbers.
Then the eggs have to be properly stored. Cool, humid environment and turned at least once a day. One should try to incubate eggs less than a week old.

A clean disinfected incubator is important. Alcohol works but I've found activated oxine to be best as it kills viruses, bacteria and fungi.

One will never have successful hatches with too low or too high of temperatures. A calibrated or guaranteed accurate thermometer is imperative.
Most people start with one or more cheap thermometers like Accu-rite and reptile/aquarium types - or worse. All thermometers are SUPPOSED to be accurate to ±2°F(1.1C). That isn't close enough for hatching. Add to that the fact that most of those are not even within that standard. I had a thermometer from an incubator company that was accurate at 75F and off by 4 degrees at 99F.
The single move that improved hatching for me was to throw all of them away and get a real thermometer. The best thermometer I've found that won't break the bank
https://www.thermoworks.com/RT301WA It is accurate to ±0.9°F (±0.5°C) off the shelf and calibratable.
Another good one is the Brinsea spot check.
https://www.brinsea.com/p-394-spot-check-digital-incubator-thermometer.aspx
Be sure to get it from Brinsea. Some from resellers like Walmart and Amazon have been defective.

Proper weight loss, controlled by humidity, for all avian species is 12% by lockdown. I have a couple pretty good hygrometers now but I gave up on them for years, opting instead for weighing eggs with a gram scale. That has proven effective and IMO, more accurate than measuring humidity. All eggs are different and need different humidity levels but regardless of species, the percentage of weight loss should be about the same.

Using these guidelines can significantly enhance success.
Bottom line is to never trust the temperature reading on an incubator without verifying.

What country are you in?

 

[Birdielee]

Chicken canoe, the eggs should Lose weight?
"Proper weight loss, controlled by humidity, for all avian species is 12% by lockdown. I have a couple pretty good hygrometers now but I gave up on them for years, opting instead for weighing eggs with a gram scale"

Someone said her broody hen's eggs felt light after 2 weeks incubation and she was told they went bad- to slip some more eggs under her.

 

[Fluffandfeathers]

Hi. Thankyou for your advice. I am in the UK.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Chicken canoe, the eggs should Lose weight?
"Proper weight loss, controlled by humidity, for all avian species is 12% by lockdown. I have a couple pretty good hygrometers now but I gave up on them for years, opting instead for weighing eggs with a gram scale"

Someone said her broody hen's eggs felt light after 2 weeks incubation and she was told they went bad- to slip some more eggs under her.

Yes. The average egg has about 3,000 pores that allows CO2 to exit and O2 to enter as the embryo grows. Along with that transpiration, moisture exits the egg. That is from the albumen. The rest of the albumen and the yolk feeds the embryo and the resulting embryo will be about the same weight as the albumen and yolk so the weight loss is from moisture loss.
The reason I asked about your location so I could determine if the products I recommended were available where you are.