Help Help Help Help Help Help!!!!

[DMSrabbit]

Ok guys i need some serious help.. I have never incubated chicken eggs (only quail eggs) and i have a HOVA Bator 1602N. I purchased 4 dozen eggs to hatch (one dozen went under my broody hen), and the other 3 went in the incubator. After establishing a constant 100 degrees Fahrenheit and about 30% humidity i started to add 36 eggs into my automatic egg turner. After all 36 were added, it took my bator about 2 hours to get back up to 100 degrees. With that many eggs the heater was constantly on, but i always checked and the temperature seemed to be stable. About day 7 (this is where i am assuming things went wrong) i added a little more water to the mix, and for some reason i couldnt get my bator to heat up past 98 degrees. I plugged the air holes at the top (in hopes to heat it back up to the right temp) and got it to slowly reach back up to 100 degrees. After this i removed the blocks from the air holes. The humidity had rose to about 45%- and possibly 50% at some point, but after about 3 hours it went back down to about 35%. I have never candled eggs, but am aware of what they are supposed to look like on the corresponding day of the incubation process.. Today is day 13, so i decided to candle my eggs for the first time, and i found out something terrible.. I SUCK AT HATCHING EGGS!!!!!!!!!! Of the 36 eggs in my incubator (which were all SHIPPED eggs btw) ONLY 3 Developed... 3 of 36.... Thats a prefect 8% hatch rate... This is not to mention the fact that i paid $36 for one dozen (barnevelders), and $29 and $26 dollars correspondingly for 2 dozen Blue Laced Red Wyandotte eggs.. Not to mention shipping... And u know what all that money got me... Maybe 3 chicks.. MAYBE...

Now, my hen who has sat on her dozen for the same time.. She has 8 fully developed from 12. She has a success rate of 75%...

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG? I buy these incubators that have thermostats, and automatic egg turners to increase my success rate., and only opened the top of my BATOR one time (today).. And i get NOTHING FOR IT.. NOTHING!! people have 50% success rates with homemade incubators that look TERRIBLE, or seem to have all sorts of problems..

I now have 2 of these incubators and was hoping to use this first hatch to fuel my incubating fire, but now.. I dont think i want to try and hatch any.. Im afraid i will kill them all.. HOW DO I AVOID THIS? HOW DO I GET BETTER? Im so frustrated, ive lost all kinds of money on this venture so far, and i cannot surmise what i have done to warrant all these eggs dying....

So much for a Christmas hatch..

Any advice? i wanna hatch eggs, but i don't know how to make my hatch more successful?

Please help me, my Christmas miracle just got crushed by a freight train....

Nate

 

[debilorrah]

Honey you haven't done anything wrong at all. Sometimes the temps are off, and due to only 3 being viable, I would say USPS played soccer with your eggs. It is not your fault or the fault of the seller. Humidity anywhere from 20-50% is just fine before lockdown. Stop kicking yourself!!!! Your first hatch of chicken eggs is going the way of my first hatch too. I finally stopped buying eggs and started setting my own, and I came to realize that if you have a 50% hatch from shipped eggs you got a REALLY REALLY good hatch. Take a breath and wait for those three to hatch.

 

[Qi Chicken]

Sorry, I've never incubated in a bator but just wanted to say sorry. It seems to me from reading other peoples threads that it is a combination of factors. Shipping, heat, humidity. Not one thing that you are doing wrong. I'm sure there are a million things we don't know about how a hen hatches her eggs. The incubator works pretty well most of the time but even then it rarely rivals nature. The monetary loss sucks...knowledge is not always priceless I guess. If there is something wrong with the technique I'm sure BYC will help you out. If you hadn't been there the three that did hatch wouldn't have. Way to go for them. Are your shippers reliable, did the eggs all arrive in good condition? Good luck to you.

 

[PunkinPeep]

The first thing i would recommend is that you do a few practice hatches with someone's barnyard fertile eggs. There are so many factors, including weather, climate, time of year, and elevation, that can make a difference in the best way for you to hatch your eggs - that some of it is just trial and error.

As to the hovabator, just one tip that really helped me. I gave up on those horrible water troughs for keeping humidity. I started using wet rags. And when i need to boost the humidity, i just wet the rag in really warm water, so it doesn't mess up the temp in the 'bator. I have had a much better time predictably controlling my humidity this way.

To get an idea about where to start, i read this thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=113681&p=1
or at least the first 16 pages or so. Some of the best information starts at about page 3.

My first hatch was very disappointing, but as i worked out the kinks, i have had truly excellent hatches, most over 90%.

As you'll discover when reading that thread, there are some great principles to follow to get great hatches, but the variables seem to be endless, so my method at 100 ft elevation and the humid south is probably not going to be the same as whatever successful method you come to up on some snowy mountain (i'm just guessing here) in Oregon.

Don't give up. I was very discouraged after my first hatch also, but i kept plugging and now it's no big deal.

 

[quintinp]

yeah i am sorry about your hatch results, it sounds to me like it wasn't the bator, it was the eggs, i only use local eggs, i don't ship, because like someone said on another comment, people are really careless, i have had the same results with my first hatches, but if you stay on this website and read what people have to say you can become a really good hatcher, like alot of these people on here, but i also learned how to actually get an egg to hatch was from an elderly man at my church, he hates little giant incubators, i dont blame him though, but you will get to know your incubator, and recognize how it acts to certain things that affect it, hope i made you the least bit more comfortable with trying to hatch again Sorry, send pics though i love seeing pics of people's incubators and their hatches

 

[theredroosta]

stop touching the incubator...

 

[justtoni44]

Hi,
I am so sorry for yur experience....
I killed my first hatch.
I bought a hydrometer and because it was new,,,,,,I did not think I had to bother calibrating it....
Painful mistake.
When I did calibrate it .it was almost 20 degrees off..........
We are almost neighbors.
I live a little ways out from Gresham
I would be happy to give you more eggs if you want to try again.............
just PM me.
Also.after my first disaster.( which sent me on a guilt trip) I have had sucsess.
Hope you will try again. Nothing like looking in that bater and having little eyes and fluff looking back.
I agree that you may have gotten eggs that were just beat up.
I have been lucky.have 13 from Florida and 11 are growing like crazy.
Toni

 

[BeccaB00]

Firstly, please don't beat yourself up about it, cause it ain't your fault. For all we know the eggs could of gotten shook up being shipped as alot of shipped eggs do. You've done absolutely nothing wrong. We've had great success at hatching in our little giant incubator. (Which is one of the cheaper incubators)

Also! Good luck with your hen and her 8 eggs

And ofcoarse the 3 you've got.

 

[kathyinmo]

You say you have the 1602. This is without a fan, correct? (meaning still air, not forced air)

The temp should be at 101.5 to 102. without the circulating fan. Could this be the problem?

However, if you had 3 develop .... maybe it was the shipping process, or some other problem.

Sorry. Don't give up.

 

[speckledhen]

The 1602 is a still air, if I'm not mistaken. Those should be at 101.5-102 at the top of the eggs, not 100. Your bator may be too cool, but also, shipped eggs are a big gamble anyway.