I don't know what we did! (first time hatching, didn't go so well)

[picklesyoung]

We just hatched our first setting of chicken and cortunix quail eggs in a little giant incubator with the fan. We used three thermometers (two bulb style, and one digital with humidity) and kept the temp around 100 degrees. The quail eggs were started four days after the chickens and we turned them three times a day (7:30, 3:00, and 9:00)

We kept the humidity around 40-45% until lockdown day and then between 60-65%. Out of 2 dozen quail eggs one hatched on day 17. Two chicken eggs hatched on what would be their day 21. Today is day 18 for the quail eggs and I left them and a couple chicken eggs that looked really dark on the candler in the incubator out of wishful thinking.

The other eggs that looked like obviously duds we took out and broke to see what we did wrong. On our best guess it looks like most of the chicken eggs stopped forming between days 5 and 7.

We have been really careful about the temp and humidity the whole time so i don't really get what we did wrong. How did we kill that many eggs and get three viable chicks? They were laying on their sides in the incubator and we hand turned them if that matters.

I'm super frustrated and would love any advice! I hope this all makes sense : )

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Were they shipped eggs? If so then that's about my luck with incubating them.

 

[picklesyoung]

We got them from a lady in town so they were driven for a few miles but not shipped.