Fully formed but died in shell? Why? HELP! They're dying!

[Riven]

I have a cabinet style incubator and have had good hatch rate previously of chicks hatching that were ready to go.

This last batch I had several that were fully developed but only two ( larger eggs) hatched. They were expected to hatch yesterday, I've left them in, but candled last night and saw no movement.

What would cause this? I have some more ready to move into the hatching tray and I'd hate to loss them if it's something I did!

 

[Riven]

Anyone? Even a link to some "trouble shooting"?

ETA: found a trouble shooting link, going to try to raise the humidity and pray that helps!

 

[kassy68]

Riven.. were the eggs small? I've not experienced it yet, but I have some small eggs in the bator also as I type due to hatch on the 19th. I will probably help them along with the others start zipping if they have not done anything..
Anyway, I have been told that sometimes if the egg is too small the chick inside does not have room to position itself and move to pip and zip.. Otherwise , mother nature sometimes just knows best (coming from a dog breeder also) Good luck and I'm sure it was the fact of big chicks in small eggs or just genetic. Kim

 

[Kennyog]

I have had this happen to me a couple times around hatching time.I noticed both times that the temp in my incubator was 106-107.This spike in temp is what i believe caused them to die in the shell.I turned the temp down and still had some hatch.

 

[Akane]

Humidity issue would be my first guess. Nearly every time I've had a large number of fully formed chicks dead in shell it was a humidity problem. Humidity seems to impact smaller egsg than large. There is less room to move in the first place and then low humidity during incubation will result in a large air sac taking up more space and making it difficult to position for hatch. I've also found smaller eggs lose moisture faster than larger eggs. The difference is much more noticeable when you hatch quail eggs but seems to apply to small bantams as well. I keep pullet and bantam eggs at higher humidity than standard eggs. Too high of humidity could also be a problem and drowned the chicks especially the chicks with less room to pip and miss any water collecting. It's impossible to tell whether it was too high or too low of humidity but one of those would be my guess.

 

[Riven]

I'm going to guess too low, but I'm going to put a sensor in there probably tomorrow that I can read from the outside, no temp. spikes so that's probably not the issue.

Thanks!

 

[Riven]

Humidity is fine... I put three eggs in that were alive less than 48 hours ago, two show no movement and one pipped then died. These chicks are getting more and more expensive by the day.... anyone please help?

I added a second thermometer and it shows the temp as being a bit low by about 1 degree, I'm working on getting it set right, but would that make me lose chicks if they develop?!

ETA: They are small and large eggs, I've had others hatch just fine without this problems a couple weeks ago and don't know why it's happening now!

Thanks!

 

[Billy7871]

I just got through incubating eggs and some of my eggs were the same way. The chicks just died in the shell even though when candled they were moving. I was so careful with humidity and temp. I was told that sometimes it happens that way. I did open up a couple later to see and they were formed so I suppose it just wasn't meant to be. I am sorry. I wish I could help more.

 

[Akane]

What do you mean humidity is fine? Did you calibrate your humidity gauge? Everyone's incubator runs better with slightly different humidity. Some have the best luck with dry incubation where the humidity is down around 40% during incubating and hatching at only 60%. Some people that would kill every egg and they incubate at around 60% and hatch up near 80%. That first group would probably drown every egg at that humidity. Your climate, incubator setup, and even the eggs themselves determine the best humidity so saying it's fine doesn't really explain anything.

 

[Riven]

Saying it's "fine" doesn't explain anything better than your post is helpful to the issue you at hand.