- May 2, 2018
- 70
- 25
- 118
I have absolutely no idea what's going wrong. I just got back into chickens after about 6 years. I've always used either a genesis hovabator or the old 1200 series GQF incubators.
I splurged and bought myself two 1502 GQF incubators, fully digital.
My first hatch went great. They were just random cheap mixed breed eggs I got from a local farmer. I put water in at the beginning and then right before lockdown and everything was good. Had a great hatch rate. This is what I'm used to with the old style incubators, very straightforward.
However...
2nd time - I tried that exact same thing a second time with very expensive eggs and had a horrible hatch rate. Maybe 40% of the eggs hatched. They're from the same breeder but from two different breeds. 30 to 40% humidity during lockdown, 60 to 70 during hatch. Temp consistent at 99.9.
3rd time - another horrible hatch, this time I paid way more close attention to the humidity during lockdown and was making sure it was always above 60%, usually 65 to 75. Three different breeds of chickens, from two different breeders. Got like 15% hatch rate from the one breeder and maybe 50% from the other.
4th time - Right now I have some more eggs hatching from a completely separate breeder and I so far have two out of 12 eggs that have hatched in a 24 hour period. It is not looking good again and I am getting so so sad and upset
I have been monitoring humidity and temperatures religiously. I bought wireless thermometer / hydrometers that are in these incubators. I'm monitoring as much as I reasonably can.
Chicks are fully formed and air cells look good when they go into lockdown.
I read somewhere on here that someone said the blower motor in the bottom of the incubator blows way too much hot air onto the chicks and dries them out and they don't hatch so I did as they suggested and put saran wrap over a large portion of the brooder box in the bottom. Going by the two chicks that have hatched out of 12 that are in the incubator, it's not going so well.
I've tried hatches with both vents open, I've tried hatches with one vent closed and one vent open and then I've also tried with both vents closed (not fully closed, I stuck paper towel in one so there's still some airflow)
I'm so frustrated and it deeply upsets me when so many chicks are not hatching as it's such a waste! I've been scouring the internet and I just don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I splurged and bought myself two 1502 GQF incubators, fully digital.
My first hatch went great. They were just random cheap mixed breed eggs I got from a local farmer. I put water in at the beginning and then right before lockdown and everything was good. Had a great hatch rate. This is what I'm used to with the old style incubators, very straightforward.
However...
2nd time - I tried that exact same thing a second time with very expensive eggs and had a horrible hatch rate. Maybe 40% of the eggs hatched. They're from the same breeder but from two different breeds. 30 to 40% humidity during lockdown, 60 to 70 during hatch. Temp consistent at 99.9.
3rd time - another horrible hatch, this time I paid way more close attention to the humidity during lockdown and was making sure it was always above 60%, usually 65 to 75. Three different breeds of chickens, from two different breeders. Got like 15% hatch rate from the one breeder and maybe 50% from the other.
4th time - Right now I have some more eggs hatching from a completely separate breeder and I so far have two out of 12 eggs that have hatched in a 24 hour period. It is not looking good again and I am getting so so sad and upset
I have been monitoring humidity and temperatures religiously. I bought wireless thermometer / hydrometers that are in these incubators. I'm monitoring as much as I reasonably can.
Chicks are fully formed and air cells look good when they go into lockdown.
I read somewhere on here that someone said the blower motor in the bottom of the incubator blows way too much hot air onto the chicks and dries them out and they don't hatch so I did as they suggested and put saran wrap over a large portion of the brooder box in the bottom. Going by the two chicks that have hatched out of 12 that are in the incubator, it's not going so well.
I've tried hatches with both vents open, I've tried hatches with one vent closed and one vent open and then I've also tried with both vents closed (not fully closed, I stuck paper towel in one so there's still some airflow)
I'm so frustrated and it deeply upsets me when so many chicks are not hatching as it's such a waste! I've been scouring the internet and I just don't know what I'm doing wrong.
