Huge loss with hatching eggs.

[Rocky Road Poultry]

I just experienced a huge loss with my hatching eggs. Many times, they develop well in the first 18 days, even with shipped eggs. However, the majority of the eggs never hatch. I've experimented with multiple hatches between two incubators, both dry and wet hatches, and even a few "in between hatch" as well. This time, however, was not with my egg laying flock's eggs, but very expensive silkie eggs that cost me $250, which is a huge amount of my savings (I'm only 16). The eggs were shipped, but arrived in excellent condition and came from amazing stock. The eggs also developed fantastically for shipped eggs. Nine out of the 12 that was shipped to me made it to hatch day. Then, only 1 hatched. Every other egg didn't even pip through the air sac. I kept the eggs at a relatively consistent humidity during development (40-45%), and kept the humidity at about 65% during lockdown. The air sacs seemed to be the correct size as well. I don't know if my incubators are the issue (I have 2 Nurture Right 360s). Any advice on how to increase my hatch rates would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Are any of these eggs from your birds or are they all from other's breeders?
I have a slightly unconventional suggestion. Don't worry about the actual humidity. In nature it can vary quite a bit. The purpose of tracking humidity is to insure the proper weight loss (moisture loss).
An easier and more accurate method is to weigh eggs.
Have you verified/calibrated the temperature in the incubator?

 

[Rocky Road Poultry]

All the eggs from my most recent hatch were from a breeder, but I have had the same negative results with my own eggs consistently. I have also verified the temperature as well in both incubators. I think I will weigh my eggs during the next hatch that I do, hopefully that will increase hatch rates.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

There can be many reasons for eggs to fail at the 18 day mark. One possibility to consider is nutrition of the breeders. Layer feed is adequate for hens to lay eggs well but may be inadequate for bringing vigorous embryos to term in those eggs.

 

[SourRoses]

So sorry to hear that. It sucks when you get all excited for new stock and it doesn't turn out.

I have an NR360 too and it works well.
Couple questions:
1. Is the turner working for sure?
2. What position do you have the air vent in as things progress?
3. Do you feel confident in the closing of the lid? (the fiddly nature of it is the main detractor for this incubator, pretty easy for it to not sit right)
4. How long did you give the eggs after their hatch day?

 

[Rocky Road Poultry]

The turner works well. Depending on how much water I put into the reservoir, I usually keep the vent at 1/2 to 2/3 of the way open. The lid does have some trouble closing at times, but I ensure that it sits securely any time I close it. I gave the eggs about 2 days after day 21. I wanted to give them longer, but I had to take out the chick that did hatch.

 

[Altairsky]

I think you should do a necropsy of the eggs and see how formed were the embryos, if they absorbed the yolk and blood before dying, if they were malpositioned, etc.

 

[Kiki]

Get some of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Govee-Hygrom...c4ad6f54c63c327eb6c11a03e7c6ba30&gad_source=1

 

[Susan Skylark]

This is an older post fyi! Just thought I’d add my $ 0.02, as I am an expert novice incubator (I’m really great at being a beginner or making silly mistakes?!). Anywho, if you are having ‘getting my chicks to hatch from both shipped and my own eggs’ you can at least rule out a few issues. If it was just your chicks or the shipped eggs, then yeah nutrition might be an issue, but for both it would be really weird. I really like cutting open anything that goes wrong (unhatched eggs, dead chicks, whatever) it can definitely teach you a lot, so an egg necropsy on all dud eggs is a must. I had one that was day 12 developmentally but the size of a full grown chick and alive 24 hours after the others hatched, I also had a cold incubator (fluke or slowed development I don’t know). Also second a couple extra thermometer and hygrometer units, will make all the difference in hatching! Also hate the lid on the NR360! I also am not a huge fan of the turner, I ended up hand turning my second batch and had good luck (I also had 36 quail eggs that I had meant to split between 2 incubators but the other one died). Also don’t give up, no matter how much of a disaster you have, learn from it and try again!