Hatching help!!

[Ruby Rogue]

I'm just gonna jump in here and say, from my recent research on the same subject, using the same incubator, I've come to the conclusion in my case that some of the eggs were probably old, improperly stored, or *too* inbred.

Out of 16 OEGB eggs, purchased locally, there are about 6 that still have a chance.

2 are in lockdown, and 4 are due to hatch in a week. I've had 5 with no development at all, 1 super early quitter, and the rest were mid-late quitters.

I've done dry hatches, I've had temperature dips and spikes, used a DIY incubator, hatched in a brooder, and never had the issues I have with this set of OEGB eggs.

 

[TheAlrightyGina]

This study is for short term emergency power outages, not consistent temperatures the entire incubation. It focuses on natural temperature dips compared to when hens leave the nest. The study also states that temperatures consistently below the optimum hen temperature (99.5) will slow development and increase mortality. Quote: "Continuous temperatures within this range (that you mentioned) but below optimum (99.5) will slow development and increase mortalities. Again it is early embryos that are more susceptible to continuous slightly low temperatures than older embryos." Meaning its worse for early embryos to experience consistent lower temperatures, than it is for older embryos. Conclusion is that early embryos may be just fine for short perids of time, as the hens do this in nature, but has high developmental delays and mortality rates when there is a consistent temperature, below optimum hen temp, the entire incubation. Higher developmental delays can, with anything in nature, lead to delayed death and not always sudden death. Which could explain the quitting around a week other than failure to start developing properly from the beginning.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but OP didn't say anything about temperatures being continuously in that range, just dips. They were almost continuously at optimum (99.5).

That's also a summary that I thought would be more accessible. There are studies that list the percentages of mortality and deformation that you can expect depending on temperature, and down to 95 it is actually pretty low. Hence why I pointed to that as the threshold. Just because the main topic is one thing, it doesn't mean that valuable info relative to the topic at hand can't be gleaned.

It's always best to shoot for the optimum, but OP was looking for reasons for high failure. Occasional dips down to 98 or even 95 are highly unlikely to cause such a high failure rate (50% for locally supplied eggs), which is what I was trying to point. My apologies that I took such a round about trip to get to the point!

 

[Whitechicks2020]

I dry hatch I don’t know if you have ever looked into that but if your humidity is high there anyway maybe something to check out. I have a local friend who does as well and out hatch rates are 90-100% with our own fresh eggs.