Help with hatching!

[littlechickenmama17]

Hello everyone! I am about to put 2 dozen eggs in my incubator tmrw, a dozen of them are going to be some cream, lavender, and opal legbars. The other dozen are mixed breeds from my flock. I have not had good luck with incubating lately. I put 20 eggs in a month ago, and only 10 hatched. I'm not expecting a 100% hatch rate, but these eggs were pretty expensive. I'm hoping to start breeding these, and some pullets i'm buying, but I would really like my hatch to be better than it has been. But it may be my flocks eggs, maybe the legbar eggs will have a better hatch rate and i'll know then. How can I raise my hatch rate? This time, I have sanitized my whole incubator very well, I already do dry hatch, all these eggs are going to be around 1-2 days old, and I am going to start opening the incubator 15 minutes a day to mimic a hen leaving every day to relieve herself. I heard that raises the hatch rate considerably. Does anybody else do anything differently? I need to know what i'm doing wrong! Thanks in advance!

 

[SmiYa0126]

Hen doesn't leave the nest for the first three days. Other than that I don't think you can do anything different.

 

[nuthatched]

Opening you incubator is probably not the best way to go. What humidity will you be running and is your incubator calibrated? Still air or forced?

 

[Iluveggers]

Did you calibrate a secondary thermometer & hygrometer?

It was also suggested to me to stop turning on day 17 not 18, (but still wait til 18 to bump humidity.)

Have you always done a dry hatch? Generally what is the humidity when you don’t add water?

 

[littlechickenmama17]

Opening you incubator is probably not the best way to go. What humidity will you be running and is your incubator calibrated? Still air or forced?

Okay, so opening the incubator is a no go. My humidity is usually 25-30%, and my incubator is forced air.

Did you calibrate a secondary thermometer & hygrometer?

It was also suggested to me to stop turning on day 17 not 18, (but still wait til 18 to bump humidity.)

Have you always done a dry hatch? Generally what is the humidity when you don’t add water?

I have both of those items calibrated in my incubator, the bator is correctly calibrated to the thermometer and the hygrometer. I started out with wet hatch, had a horrible hatch rate, then heard of dry hatch and I got a 90% hatch rate using it! When i don't add water, it's usually 25-30. I live in Texas, so our house is pretty cool during the day now.

 

[Duckduckchicken32]

How often do you turn the eggs? Do you think that your incubator is having temperature dips? If your incubator does not have a fan, you can purchase a personal fan for cheap. It helps move warm air towards the outer edges of the incubator so there is no hot and cold spots.

 

[littlechickenmama17]

How often do you turn the eggs? Do you think that your incubator is having temperature dips? If your incubator does not have a fan, you can purchase a personal fan for cheap. It helps move warm air towards the outer edges of the incubator so there is no hot and cold spots.

My incubator has an auto turner, so I'm pretty sure it turns every hour or so. My incubator does have a fan installed. I don't think my incubator is having temp dips, I check both the gadgets in the incubator every time i go into the room ( pretty frequent ), and it is always the same, albeit sometimes a tiny sliver higher or lower on the thermometer