Help with lg still air incubator

[Eric3204]

I have a little giant still air incubator that i just tried to hatch ducks in and i had a 0% hatch. Days 1-25 temp was 99.5-100 and humidity was 55-60%. Days 26-28 temp was 98-98.5 and humidity was 70-75% and i stopped turning the eggs. Up until day 21 which is the last time that i had candled the eggs everything looked good and everything was forming correctly. But it wasnt until about day 32 i heard peeping in the egg and the egg was actually moving alot (i had some egg movement before that but it was very little) The next day the egg stopped moving and no peeping, so i candled it and there was no movement inside. It is now day 34 and one of the eggs actually still has movement inside when candled. This is my first time incubating anything before so im very confused. Im figuring being this late the duck isnt going to hatch even if it still has movement. Im guessing the egg that was actually peeping was too week to actually externally pip. I also have the auto turner, so i only ever opened the incubator to add water and to candle, and the room that they are in stays a pretty constant temp of about 70.
Now i did alot of research before i did the incubating on what to do so i felt confident that id at least get 1 to hatch, so i was surprised to get nothing. I just read on a few sites that when you use a still air incubator you are supposed to have the temp at like 102-103 and 99.5 for a forced air. Is this correct?? Im figuring that if this is correct than this had to of been what my problem was....the temp was too low throughout the incubation and they werent ready to hatch until late and then they were too weak to actually hatch....i want to try incubating again and i have someone who is going to give me chicken eggs, which he said are easier than ducks, i just wanna make sure i dont make the same problem again...i know that chickens have different requirements than ducks do like the humidity.

SO i guess my questions are what couldve went wrong with the first hatch....is there a difference in forced air and still air incubator temps...and what exactly are the requirements of chickens using my incubator.
Sorry to ask so much lol i just dont wanna go through another failed hatch...it was very dissapointing waiting that long for nothing
Thank you!

 

[stephanie1992]

were they still in the turner on hatching day? i dnt see why they wouldnt hatch. could be a number of things.

 

[dbcooper02]

These didn't happen to be Muscovy eggs did they? They take 35 days to hatch. If ordinary ducks you are probably correct in figuring they are late because they were a little below optimum temperture. But they could still hatch. I wouldn't give up quite yet.
Temperature in a still air incubator is measured at the level of the top of the eggs and should be 101.5 if I remember correctly. In a still air incubator the air is warmer at the top and cooler at the bottom, so this puts the temperature at the middle of the egg at the desired 99.5 degrees

 

[Grog]

At this point you could do a manual hatch if you are really set on the babies. You will probably not get a live hatch, but you will be able to see the development and tell if they diddnt mature completely. also I diddnt see were these bought eggs? and which breed?

 

[crazypetlady]

I have the same bator and have my temp set at the egg level right now it is 100.2 and I have the humidity 39-42 with a sponge I think mine should be fine. I will be candling Friday and see what is developing.

 

[Eric3204]

No I took the turner out at 25 days when I stopped turning. Their just pekin and khaki campbell ducks not muscovy..i bought the eggs from efowl. Im thinking the temp might have been too low, and now I understand what you mean by the temp reading higher at the top so that the real temp would be taken from the middle of the egg..thats good to know. Thank you..
i guess I'm going to try and give it a few more days but like I said when I candied yesterday their was only movement in one egg...so I'm not going to get my hopes high..and after everything is over ill open them up to see the development..but after I know their no good.
Btw what's the best humidity for hatching chickens
Thanks for all the help so far

 

[silkie_sue]

If it's a Still Air bator shouldn't the temp be 101.5?

 

[Eric3204]

Yeah I'm pretty positive thats what I did wrong..i was thinking about it and my thermometer was sitting on top of the eggs but the temp was reading 99.5 so im figuring the temp was actually like 97.5 then so thats why the movement and peeping came so late and probally why they died in their shell at hatch..so yeah I would guess 101.5 sounds about right then

 

[Gypsy07]

I think your humidity was also a bit too high. People will tell you that duck eggs need higher humidity than chickens, and they do, but only for lockdown and hatching, not for the whole length of the incubation. When I incubate duck eggs, I actually use a lower humidity than I do with chicken eggs.

Correct humidity is hard to gauge and hard to get right, but one way of doing it is to weigh your eggs as they progress. Chicken eggs should lose about 13% of their weight from days 1-18 and duck eggs should lose about 15% of their weight from days 1-22. The first time I tried ducks, I followed a lot of the advice on here and started them off at 50-55% humidity. But I also weighed them. And after about 10 days I realised they weren't losing weight fast enough and I had to drop the humidity right down to get them on track for the correct weight loss.

Next time you try, think about lowering your humidity a bit too.

 

[Michie]

I have a much better success rate, with the LGs if I do a dry incubation. Hope that helps!