First Time incubation problems

[elmrdchickens]

Hi all,
My wife and I are new to raising chickens and decided to try our hand at hatching out chicks. We have a variety of chickens-1 buff orpington rooster, 16 ladies-buff orpington, rhode island red, americauna, speckled sussex, and salmon favorelle. We purchased an incubator that turns every 2 hours, kept our temp at 38c, humidity at 55%. We put 32 eggs in the incubator 23 days ago. We hatched 2 chicks on day 19, 4 on day 20, and 1 on day 21. I did not know to turn off the turning mechanism of the brooder, so this was not done until day 20. We have since unfortunately lost two of those due to curled feet and splayed legs which it sounds like we unfortunately did not treat early enough. My question is to those who have done this before, am I doing something wrong? I was hoping for a hatch rate around 50%, but i am well below that. We are considering giving it another go and hatching another batch, but before I do I wanted to get some advice from those who have done this before.

Thanks!

 

[Hens Solo]

I didn't have any better success with my attempts at hatching. I got 13 out of 56 1st time. 0/45 the second time(all double yolkers) I now have 12 viable out of 25 for tomorrows lockdown. I attribute my poor success to poor quality cull eggs, cheap chinese incubators, and fall/winter poor fertility rates. I'm starting to believe these styrofoam incubators might have an advantage over cheap plastic. From what I read the high end incubators like brinsea, etc. might be better. Keep the faith we're all learning together!

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Funny thing about roosters they play favorites. Some hens my rooster breeds some he never does... I assume you feed your birds good feed so the splayed legs are probably due to high heat. Double check all of your temperatures all around the incubator. Some that could have been fertile might have gotten "cooked", they ones that didn't get cooked got splayed legs. Check all your temperatures and try again.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Btw humidity should be 45% until 3 days before hatch. 3 days before hatch until hatch 60%. I think 37.5 Celsius is closer to the 99.5 Fahrenheit temperature. 38' Celsius is too high.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Temperature is the most important factor in incubating. 37.5 C is correct.

Humidity is a huge factor. Without allowing for water loss the air sac in egg is too small resulting in chicks drowning before external pip. 35 RH to day 18. 70 rh for hatch.

Yes, stop turning day 18.

 

[FortCluck]

There's a lot of things that can be a factor... The chickens that laid the eggs (breeding stock), humidity, temperature, the incubator, and so many other things.

I stop my turner on day 16 and usually have no lower than 85% hatch rates. I stop the turner because after day 14 the chicks are so big that they tend to move on their own and that makes it so they can't stick to the shell.

I keep my humidity between 30-45 until day 18 then I increase to 50. I usually don't add water until day 18 because my humidity is usually perfect inside my house.

 

[Ted_Harrell]

Please put a known good thermometer in your incubator and let it get up to temperature. With the thermometer sitting where the eggs will be sitting, the temp should be around 99.5 and the earlier poster mentioned humidity, that plays an important part in the last 3 days. If it isn't 99.5 make some adjustments. Good luck and don't loose heart...

 

[FortCluck]

I would actually put two glass fish tank thermometers on different sides of the incubator to make sure that you don't have any really bad cold spots or hot spots.

I would also get a hygrometer for the inside of the incubator if you don't already have one because the humidity gauge on a incubator is so inaccurate you would be shocked... My incubator is brand new and the first time it was off by 10%.

You'll want to calibrate the hygrometer too. You can find YouTube videos or instructions on how to do it.

 

[FortCluck]

Did you let the incubator run for a couple days before you put eggs into it?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I believe your temperature was a bit high throughout.
Most thermometers and incubator controls are notoriously inaccurate. That is critical for healthy chicks. You can start with a guaranteed accurate incubator or calibrate.
I've used so many types of cheap thermometers that were way off. Aquarium thermometers and most others are only supposed to be within 2F and that isn't close enough for incubation. I've found most to be off by much more than 2F. That will kill embryos. The 2 best thermometers I've found out of the box that won't break the bank are the Brinsea Spot Check and the Thermoworks RT301.
https://www.brinsea.com/p-394-spot-check-digital-incubator-thermometer.aspx
https://www.thermoworks.com/RT301WA
There are likely other issues. If these were eggs from your birds, I would visit breeder flock nutrition. Layer and all flock feed may be sufficient for eating eggs but not necessarily good enough to take an embryo to term and vigorous enough to hatch.
For good hatchability, you want methionine at about .5%, lysine at about 1%, cystine at about .75%, vitamins A @5,000 IU, D at least 2,000 IU and E @50 IU per pound. Manganese at 85 ppm.
You aren't likely to find those numbers on any guaranteed analysis tag for regular feeds.
It is hard to find breeder rations but there are ways to supplement.