giving up on day 25 - sad and curious

[sjmjrgkmg]

Hi all,
We were incubating eggs as a homeschool project and day 21 (and days 22, 23 and 24) came and went with no sign. Finally this morning I took them out of the incubator and candled to see what went wrong. We had candled a few of the eggs on day 10 and saw air pockets, blood vessels and developing chicks. When I checked today most eggs had good sized air pockets (I couldn't see anything on some of the thicker shelled brown ones), and a dark splotch but no blood vessels. The dark spot took up no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of the space - like maybe things had just stopped midway through. I couldn't bring myself to open one - I cracked one of them but there was an unpalatable smell. Not sulphurous like a rotten egg, just unpleasant. Can anyone offer best guesses as to what might have happened? I've incubated eggs before in a still air incubator and had excellent results. I'm no expert (have only done 3 hatches) but last year had 100 percent. I kept the temp at around 100 - pretty sure we never had an extreme dip or jump, 2 thermometers resting on top of the eggs, and may have been a little inconsistent on the humidity. I just added water from time to time. Once in a while the humidity was high enough that there was condensation on the edges of the windows, not always though. I'd love any thoughts from you more experienced hatchers. We might try again - my daughters were pretty sad about it. But I'd like to go into the next time with more preparation. many thanks,
Sue

 

[hinkjc]

I would guess humidity was your problem. You should not see condensation on the window at all during incubation. You may see it during hatch as wet chicks emerge, but then you need to open vents to stabilize humidity. If humidity is kept too high, the air cell does not get big enough for the chick to pip and hatch properly.

 

[schmmems]

I have hatched lots of eggs. I am in Florida, so we have pretty high humidity all of the time. I never really worried about humidity in my incubator, until I started reading things on here. I never did lockdown, I never waited to pull chicks, I never worried about it. Then I got a new incubator. And a new thermometer with a hygrometer. I worried about the humidity, adding water, adding wet sponges. And I had my worst string of hatches ever. They would all develop but die around day 18-19. So this time, I took out all of the humidity things, did a dry incubation, just like before I learned so much. I just got 100% hatch rate on shipped eggs.

Sometimes I think we overthink things. Hens don't think so hard.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Mama&thePeeps]

I'm sorry nothing hatched.

 

[Lotsapaints]

Quote:
Just love it I bought a cheap incubator haven't set eggs for many years read everything on here I could bought a new thermometer with a hygrometer calibrated it set eggs....my incubator is a preset one and no way to adjust it that I can find .......humm read booklet that came with incubator put water in like it said turned eggs by hand 3 times a day instead of 2 times a day like the instructions....hatched out almost all the eggs. Been hatching eggs ever since figured out how to add water to the water channels without opening it as I do live where there is not much humidity...I'm thinking that it isn't that tough to hatch eggs if you just leave it alone and quit worrying about it. Yes some eggs don't hatch some shipments of eggs none make it to lock down is it my fault? I don't think so. Yes the room it is in needs to be around 70 to 75 no sunlight hitting it pretty much sensible things. I am using a 39.00 made in China incubator my favorite thing about it is the "FORBIDDEN BLOWHOLE" I admit I'm addicted to hatching and bought another one of these cheapies and I am hatching chicks right now 4 eggs made it out of 28. The story is 3 eggs came out of a batch of egg soup I would have bet 50.00 none would have hatched. The other is a nicely packed doz eggs that only 2 developed and one of those quit pretty early the rest were damaged from shipping...and I'm really hoping the one left comes out to play...I have won money in Las Vegas but not every time I go do I make my money back. It's a gamble so is life. Don't stress so much over incubation. Oh and I do look at my therm/humidity thingy and it helps me add water because when it says low the water channels are empty and if the temp goes up to 101 I cool down the room....Don't just blame yourself some eggs just don't hatch.

 

[sjmjrgkmg]

We will probably try again, but from reading other posts it seems that most people keep more careful tabs on humidity (I've seen references to wet bulb/dry bulb readings and hygrometers) - how and where can I get more information about this? I have always just gone by the scanty instructions that come along with the incubator.
Sue