Vivid Hatchery

Chirping
Jan 14, 2018
50
57
76
Utah
Okay, so I am having a terrible time hatching chicks. I know that most of us here keep our chicks backyard or on a small farm, and I am no different. I provide a balanced layer feed ration. Most of my flocks are around 1:5 gender ratio. My birds have a lot of places they can run and escape, I keep a close eye on bullying, so even with that low ratio, they still space and multiple levels in their enclosures. I gather fairly clean eggs by hand. I put them in reused Styrofoam egg cartons. I often do not turn the eggs up on the side, each day, they mostly stay flat. The incubation room stays around 69 F consistently. 20% humidity in the room give or take.

The eggs are occasionally misshaped recently, however this has not been the case for months. I had the poor hatch rate then as well. Eggs are hard, no other types of deformities. One breed had a lot of calcium buildup on the shells but that has passed.

I do not wash the eggs before incubation. I will use a clean cloth or green brillo to scrape material off the egg, but it stays dry. Eggs are rarely out for a week before being set. That is the max. So every other egg is from day 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 day past. One study I read stated that as long as an egg is within ten days, there is still 98% probability it will remain as good as ones incubated on the first day.

I use a Brinsea 380 cabinet incubator. The most recent model. I run the indoor temp at 99.5 and the humidity at 40% unless there are eggs in lock down I bump it up to 60%. I need to but haven't purchased additional thermometers/ hyrgometers, but money is extremely tight right now. I use an automated humidity system so I do not have to raise fill any containers and have strong fluctuations in humidity levels. It maintains the humidity within a few degrees.

I have been pulling eggs at two different intervals. Once around day 7, and once around later on, around lockdown. At the time of the first inspection, I am often losing 20-30 percent. I am getting blood rings, and just failure to develop, so an absence of blood rings. Second, I get more at the second time, and they just failed to develop part way through. Like there is development inside, but then quit out. A lot are around day 8 it appears post mortem, but many others near hatch time. I lose another 30%+ during the lock down. Many still have yellow fluid in the yolk sack, mostly absorbed but failed to break through the air sack. But I have consistently been getting a ton that pierce the thin layer but then fail to hatch through the shell. I have been wanting to hold off on assisting to hatch until after day 21, but historically I never have any hatch after day 21, which gives me the impression that it is not a problem of the incubator getting too cool. Also, when I begin to assist unopened ones, it seems about half of the failures failed to pip. Others have a lot of water. Others died early that I failed to catch through candling. I have assisted some, but I want to get to the bottom of this. There is something significantly wrong, and I have not been able to discover it so I sought out you wise people.

I have purchased a second incubator, the Rite Farm 528 cabinet incubator, and it seems to be having a better go at it, I read through the first batch of eggs at day 8 and they were pretty good, only deaths in about 20%, which is pretty good because some had even been about two weeks old by the time the incubator arrived. It is having a hard time keeping humidity down, I have it at 40 max but I cannot keep it below 65%. I am worried about this drowning out my eggs at hatch. But I think if I keep this at this humidity throughout the entire incubation then it should not hurt it, but what are your thoughts?

Oh, another fact, I keep keep six different breeds. This is an issue that is more or less across the board. However, my large fowl barnevelder seem to be having the worst at it. I am NPIP, there is no sign of disease. No issues with mites or parasites. Fecal material looks normal. Marek's vaccinated at birth. I have had a problem lately with early molt. I have about 15 chickens who are going through an early molt, at age 9 to 11 months, as opposed to 14-16 which is common for a first molt.

I recently read a post by someone talking about hatching issues, and it occurred to me that a lot of this could possibly be caused by a riboflavin deficiency. They said death at day 4 and day 19 very common, and I have been having about one in 15 chicks born with a foot condition. I am surprised I did not put that together, I thought it was genetic or an injury. Does anyone know a recommendation for riboflavin supplementary dosage? For entire flocks?
 
My suggestion is switch to a flock raiser feed with oyster shell on the side. 22% protein was said to give the best hatch rates... It's the amino acids.

But thinking about my personal rates... it fluctuates and I'm starting to wonder if my great hatches aren't from when I feed back the extra eggs which have good source of vitamins and minerals including selenium.

Anyways, I wanna chat some more cuz I'm passionate about hatching and learning all I can... but got a busy morning. Hopefully I find the thread again later.. I have lots of info to share. :)

:jumpy:jumpy
 
I suspect I was the post you read with riboflavin deficiencies.

B vitamins (not just riboflavin, but it's one of the most common deficiencies) are very important overall for leg health. You can pick up an injectible/dissolvable supplement at may feed stores/vet supplies. I would consider just dosing your entire flock with a product similar to this:
Durvet High Level Vitamin B Complex

I would also think about switching feeds, as Eggsighted recommended.
https://www.merckvetmanual.com/poul...ement-poultry/vitamin-deficiencies-in-poultry


EDT: Personally, I like vitamin B complex tablets. Available at Walmarts near me.

Also, you can buy riboflavin alone. You have to ask for it at the counter in PA. I use two tablets/1.5 gallon of water twice a week during the breeding season. I don't know whether that's the dosage or not, but it's definitely helped my bantams' fertility rate.
 
Alright, so I went to Walmart and got a vitamin B complex vitamin, but I did not read your post as close as I should because I should have asked the pharmacy about the riboflavin specifically. I also went to IFA and got some different feed. I got some mixed grain with molasses, timothy hay, and a bunch of soy to increase the protein content of the feed they already have. I am going to serve them the original feed with a little added soy in troths, and then also offer the new stuff in bucket feeders so that way they have variety, and also more access to different feed types. What I was giving them originally was a layer pellet mostly of corn and soy. I want to encourage them to put on weight but also to eat the extra protein mixed in with the other sources. I am going to add a B-complex pill to each waterer in order to give them the riboflavin they need. The pill is pretty hard, I know that B2 is water soluable but I am not sure about the rest, so we shall see how it goes.
 
Here's a good analysis paper of hatch problems.
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/IR00004437/00001
Thank you for the link, I tried to read over it but it is too informative for me to process this late. I will have to read over it more soon.

Of the last 120 I had a little over 40 hatch. Tomorrow I have 176 at day 21 in the new Rite-Farm 528, and I have about 30 in the Brinsea cabinet that are due to hatch. There is one who hatched early in the Rite Farm, I have never had an early hatch in the Brinsea, so it was not something i had anticipated. I am guessing it was an older one that was developing prematurely while it sat out in the 70 F room. I was imagining the Cemani to have hatched stickier, but it came out with soft fluff. So the high humidity is not having as much of a destructive impact as I was concerned. The shell he came out of was reasonably dry and clean.
 
There is another feed store about two hours in the opposite direction I am going to try out once I am finished with the thousand pounds or so I have left of feed. Hopefully that stuff is better because I really do not want to mix soy and calcium carbonate evenly into feed on this type of scale. it will not only be a workout but also very time consuming.
 
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Alright, so I went to Walmart and got a vitamin B complex vitamin, but I did not read your post as close as I should because I should have asked the pharmacy about the riboflavin specifically. I also went to IFA and got some different feed. I got some mixed grain with molasses, timothy hay, and a bunch of soy to increase the protein content of the feed they already have. I am going to serve them the original feed with a little added soy in troths, and then also offer the new stuff in bucket feeders so that way they have variety, and also more access to different feed types. What I was giving them originally was a layer pellet mostly of corn and soy. I want to encourage them to put on weight but also to eat the extra protein mixed in with the other sources. I am going to add a B-complex pill to each waterer in order to give them the riboflavin they need. The pill is pretty hard, I know that B2 is water soluable but I am not sure about the rest, so we shall see how it goes.
Just hit it with something hard. Unlike vitamin E, B crumbles.
 

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