My chicken crazy friend got an incuview incubator. She and I split the first hatch. Together we had 27 eggs to start. 3 were duds. We had a bunch pip on day 19 and 20. We had some hatch on their own and after a few dying in the shell, the rest had some type of help. So here are the things we need advice on. First, all the eggs seemed to have dry, almost leathery membranes. Even the eggs that didn't live, when opened up it seemed like the membranes were dry white in someplaces and normal in others. The humidity never got up into the 'hatching stage' on the incuview's meter, but all the water vessels were full. There was condensation all over the rim of the lid and we put a wet sponge in there. I was afraid the chicks would drown, but again, the hygrometer read low. Second, a lot of the chicks died either after pip, or just never pipped. Most of these birds had not absorbed their yoke sac or stomach or whatever the technical term is. We do have a couple that hatched and lived that have the tummies not up into the body yet. Over all, we had 15 live. We ordered a second hygrometer incase something is off with the incuview. Any pointers would be much appreciated!!
This is everything you could ever possibly want to know about incubating eggs. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101 Also, do not trust the hygrometer that is on the lid of the Incuview. Mine is off by about 10%. Always use at least 2 thermometers and hygrometers, just be sure that things are reading properly. Also, you need to be tracking those air cells throughout incubation, so that you know when to raise or low the humidity. I get the best/healthiest hatches run the incubator is kept at about 30%. Filling all the trays usually gets the humidity to about 65%, which is plenty high for hatching.
I would say that most of your problems sound like humidity. If you had condensation in your bator and it wasn't reading enough for hatch, it's almost positively off. Which would lead me to believe that your humidity during incubation was probably higher than you thought. I'd take a look at this: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity
