I have candled the new ones at day 7 and had only a few possible duds or yokers. The last batch of 24 I incubated that the weak one came out of at day 14 candle about 1/2 died. I had 12 living at lockdown and only 3 hatch, 4 pip and died during hatching. My hens are about a year old and Wonder if age has anything to do with quality? The ones I have in the bator are purchased from another farm.I really hope most of these make it. Thank you so much for being incouraging.
The hens are a good age to be laying fertile eggs. I still have some hens over a decade old laying regularly with between 80 to 100% fertility and surviving hatch rate. And on the other hand I have some younger hens who consistently throw duds or early embryonic deaths. While these people didn't get certification to prove it, some (bantam breeders especially, i.e. Hamburg breeders) have claimed they have had hens commonly mid-twenties but some over 30 years old --- still laying fertile eggs. Personally, I believe them.
My closest to purebred lines are my least fertile and my mongrels the most; if you've bought show stock which has been selected for appearance over all other traits then that could account for your fertility issues. Trying a new rooster may shed some light on that potentiality. Some show breeders have to resort to desperate and artificial measures to get any live offspring because fertility is low to nonexistent for some of them. Some even use Horny Goat Weed on their roosters because they can't do it otherwise! lol.
Common causes of DIS embryos (I have all of these running in a few lines but thankfully not in all) include congenital malpositioning within the egg, badly positioned air pockets, and some degree of genetic problems. I'm still weeding out those issues.
As a novice years back, I didn't know to keep track of which embryos required help to hatch, and as such I have ongoing problems because those chicks became adults and in turn reproduced, and now are indistinguishable among my flock. Their failure to hatch unassisted was strongly heritable. So they are passing on their tendencies to malposition and be unable to hatch. You can't spot that one by candling, because they only move into the wrong position just before hatching. I'm just starting to get on top of that issue now. I've had to do a lot of retroactive tracking of problems lol.
I once had a horribly virulent bacteria come out of nowhere it seemed and kill eggs on contact apparently by causing something like instant septic shock. As far as I know that's termed 'exploders', though none of mine actually did that because I didn't give them enough time. Hatching eggs would die within an hour after being touched by the skin, feathers, or nesting materials of the contaminated broody hen and nest, or even via shell to shell contact with infected eggs, no transmission of fluids involved. They rotted at a rate I've never seen before or since, with the shells intact the stench was obvious from a distance, permeated anything it touched including my own skin and clothes, and the hens would kill any eggs they sat on just by contact. It just blazed through the flock one winter and never came again. I managed to save some by getting them the heck away from that smell, but that was quite the eye-opener. I can only guess the wild birds brought it in, but I don't know for sure and may never know.
Other problems that cause DIS can include diseases, such as may be present in the environment or within the hen, and congenital transmission from roosters occurs too though most people still believe otherwise; but if they died in shell due to any present diseases, they were too weak to survive anyway, so better they die sooner with less suffering, as harsh as that may sound.
Here's some random info on potential causes:
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This sounds like it is not your fault at all, honestly. Even the pros get bad seasons.
Some people --- even the most experienced sorts ---- disregard wormers or vaccines that specify not to breed during (or within a given period after) usage. It's a pretty big problem when people often use chemicals off-label for species they were never intended for and have never been tested on. But this is very common.
Results often take generations to show, so often we think everything is fine and don't connect the lines between mysterious illnesses or weaknesses or problems we keep seeing crop up in future generations. If you keep animals for enough generations you begin to see the patterns unless you're one of those who doesn't realize such patterns exist. But they do.
You would be a rare case indeed if your animals are not still carrying damage from the actions of the owners of their recent forebears.
Best wishes and good luck with your next clutch.
Or as we used to call them, the little beeps.
