paloozaparty
Songster
I went from 100% total fail (with some making it to last day, and even rocking around, but not hatching)--and, had a WIDE variety of issues (like you)--but, in a nutshell--here's the MAGICAL combination that worked for me... (I incubated from our rooster, and, I am a total newbie--zero prior experience and don't know a single person, in person, who knows anything about hatching eggs)... I used 2 incubators--the only one that ended up working is the hovabator with automatic egg rotator (rotating by hand did NOT work and I tried many variations of rotations and sequences). I did buy and use a hygrometer ($7) to track humidity--this helped 100%. So, maintain humidity at 50%, I chose to try the higher heat--at 101 degrees, let the automatic turner/rotator to do its thing throughout day, AND, I even candled the eggs EVERY day from day 1-18--then HANDS OFF the incubator from day 18-21 (yes, I've seen how most people suggest NOT to candle every day, but this was my last desperate attempt and I'd NOT checked every day on prior 3 (very small) batches--so, I decided to check and document this time. I also marked the aircell on days 1, 8, 18 (I placed 9 eggs, of which ALL maintained "healthy" aircell growth throughout). On my prior attempts--I'd read consistently about manually turning eggs in what I determined was WAY TOO radical of movement for the eggs--even one almost birth--was breech in the egg (head in small side)--so, again, I'd personally resolved that the suggested manual turning was way too much, and instead, finally realized 100% success (9 out of 9 eggs) with the benefit of the auto turner. I also realized that a broody hen would sit on her eggs for up to 23 hours per day--or thereabouts--and, therefore, felt like candling each egg every day--for less than 10 seconds each, and handling without turning the egg, should qualify as "unharmful" yet necessary growth tracking--I feel like that's a fair assessment since I realized such success, finally. Attaching some pics--tho I only have pics from after I removed the auto-egg turner... on day 18, I removed the turner. However, I forgot to mention right away, that 3 EGGS hatched starting on DAY !8, then the rest hatched by the next day--but, all within 14 hours!!! So, I'd also read that slightly higher temp (101 vs 99.5) can cause early hatch--this was SO true--in fact, within ONE hour on day 18 of removing the turner and for lockdown--the first one pipped and hatched within that next hour. SUCH a relief after so many perplexing losses!
