Hatch failure

[LABird]

So I’m devastated. My recent hatch was awful. Only about 1/2 the eggs hatched. Quite a few were infertile and that’s ok, it is what it is. The truest sad part is that of the eggs that didn’t hatch many held fully formed chicks that filled the eggs. So they should have hatched. I’m so sad but need help figuring this out so it doesn’t happen again. I have read the articles here which are great but it really comes down to temp or humidity—right? How do I tell what went wrong? I’m thinking humidity got too high but how do I KNOW for sure that’s it and how can I better regulate it? I have a hovabator with an egg turner. It’s still air. The humidity once the first few chicks pipped/hatched went to 100% almost immediately and I couldn’t get it down without opening the incubator which risks chilling everything at a crucial time. What could I have done differently? Do you think it could have been something else? Temp remained pretty steady between 99-100 degrees. Thanks in advance for your support.

 

[JessicaDotta]

I'm sorry you've had such a frustrating hatch. I wish I were better equipped to answer you. I've hatched twice from an incubator. The first time, I followed the instructions (and suggested water levels) and had similar results. The second time, I purchased a cheap hygrometer and quickly learned that I only needed to add 1 tsp to tbs of water, because my household humidity is really high. I had about a 25% hatch rate my first batch, and a 75% hatch rate for my second batch.

I am glad you got some chicks, though!

 

[LABird]

I'm sorry you've had such a frustrating hatch. I wish I were better equipped to answer you. I've hatched twice from an incubator. The first time, I followed the instructions (and suggested water levels) and had similar results. The second time, I purchased a cheap hygrometer and quickly learned that I only needed to add 1 tsp to tbs of water, because my household humidity is really high. I had about a 25% hatch rate my first batch, and a 75% hatch rate for my second batch.

I am glad you got some chicks, though!

Thanks. This was my 3rd hatch in this incubator. The first hatch went great, the second had lots of infertile eggs though a three failed to hatch. This last hatch was so sad because there were 6-8 chicks dead in the eggs. Heartbreaking. Thanks for your support though.

 

[FeatherTay]

Ahhhhh. You can open the incubator for little bit without hurting the chicks inside. It takes a lot more time then you would think to shrinkwrap a chick in its egg. More than likely your humidity was too high and the chicks drowned. I'm sorry about your losses but just think about your babies who did hatch!

 

[Tonyroo]

I'm sorry you had a bad hatch. To me incubating requires a lot of monitoring for temperature and humidity, even more so during lockdown. I wish I can advise but can't, I never owned a purchased incubator and don't have much experience with still air models.
I have only used my diy incubator with fan.

 

[LABird]

Ahhhhh. You can open the incubator for little bit without hurting the chicks inside. It takes a lot more time then you would think to shrinkwrap a chick in its egg. More than likely your humidity was too high and the chicks drowned. I'm sorry about your losses but just think about your babies who did hatch!

Thanks for the support. I know we do open the incubator extremely briefly to fish out empty shells and totally dry chicks about 24 hrs after first chick. But how do you lower humidity?