I have been using the incubator with 3 additional thermometers inside (govee and thermpro) and don’t know what the problem is even after all of these batches. There do seem to be some spots in the incubator that are warmer or cooler by a degree - found by experimenting and moving all of the thermometers around to check temps throughout incubation.
But the weird thing is that the chicks that do develop most of the way (which isn’t many because I believe most of them didn’t develop/stopped very early due to shipping issues), but the ones that do develop most of the way are dying between 18-21 days. And those who do make it to 20-21 days aren’t pipping because of shrink wrapping. I have experimented with almost every variable and still can’t figure it out but the eggs that spent the most time under the broodies were the most successful.
With one batch I had 25 eggs in the incubator and 3 under a broody… not one of the 25 hatched (though several made it to lockdown) so 100% failure with the incubator. But under the broody, one egg hatched, so only 66% failure. I wouldn’t recommend the chickcozy incubator to anyone. I may try it again when I am able to get my own fertilized eggs. But not with shipped eggs again. And I don’t have hope for my own eggs because in the last batch I put in 6 local eggs and put 3 under the broody for most of the time. All six in the incubator didn’t develop/or didn’t hatch, and 2/3 that spent most of the time under the broody did hatch (I did have to help one of them out.) so weird. But if anyone ever reads this in the future, I guess the moral is to not buy chick cozy incubators!!
I don’t plan on setting any more eggs until my own chickens start having fertile eggs, which I have no idea when that will be hahaha. I gave away 7 cockerels in the past week but I still have 1-2 in my oldest batch of chicks.
