Will appreciate your help: I was left with 5 Brahamas female and one male all very young (about 8 mounths). I collect about 40 eggs and and start incubating. all eggs were fertilized and in all of them grew chicks. only one of them hatched by himself although he behaved very healthy the chick died after one day. 2 other eggs i opened and freed the chicks but they were malformation (legs problem) and died after 3 days of a lot of TLC. I would like to collect more eggs and start again, this time with a better incubator and more care about temprature and Humidity but I am not sure that by problem is technical because the male is a brother or the son of the female who laud the eggs. CAN SOMEONE HELP WITH A GOOD ADVICE? Thanks in advance. Daniel
I am really struggling to get a decent hatch with my still air Little Giant incubator. Mine are getting close to hatch day, moving in the shell the whole time and then just die before hatching or can't hatch on their own. I can only guess I am having temp/humidity issues, even though my thermometer stays on the same temp and humidity almost constantly. Temp fluctuations, air flow (or lack thereof) and wrong humidity seem to be the most common reasons hatches fail. I don't think your chickens being related will cause any problems. Unless every chick you hatch you are seeing the exact same deformities, my guess would be its a temp/humidity problem.
It is not uncommon for poultry to be bred to related birds so I dont expect the problems to be from close breeding unless it is a very rare breed that has had little genetic diversity for a number of years. I would go ahead and try again. If you have good temperature, humidity, and the eggs hatch at the proper time, and you once again have the same issues, then I would look at genetics.
Thanks so much for your answers, I will try again. One thing i learned: in a still air incubator, it is very important were you have placed the temp. reader. if you elevete it by one inch the temp. will be higher in about ONE cel. deg. so for the next time I have removed a power supply and a small ventilator from an old computer and I will change me incubator to be a moving air one. I really do not see how can I control the Humidity. I have seen that it is not important how many water supply i put in or how big they are, I can not control the humidity. It is always between 56-62%. Thanks for any input. God bless America although I am far away. Daniel
Welcome Daniel, Some people use wet sponges to help control humidity. I cut them in about 3 inch squares and place a few at a time in the incubator to get the right humidity. You do need to moisten them frequently. With the humidity you are reporting it appears you are in a very humid climate. If you are putting water in the small channed only you can adjust it a bit by taking out the red vent plug on top, that will take it down a little. Good Luck
I also would bet on the incubator as opposed to genetics. You might try finding a few fertile eggs from another flock and hatching them along with your eggs. It might help anwer the genetics question. I'll include a couple of incubating links that might help. http://gallus.tamu.edu/Extension publications/b6092.pdf http://www.ianrpubs.unl.edu/epublic/pages/publicationD.jsp?publicationId=62 Good luck.
as far as I know, too high of humidity does not cause deformities. It causes the chicks to drown in the shell when they try to hatch because the air cell does not dry out and become large enough, they suffocate or drown. If you can have a de-humidifier run in the room with your incubator maybe you can get the humidity down to 45-50% and might help your hatch rate also. Good luck and keep us posted. And Welcome To BYC!
