incubating and hatching in egg carton questions is this causing bad hatches or something else ?

[MSH]

ok so I started using egg cartons with hatching and incubating it helped to tell which eggs were which and all but I've had a seriouse decline in hatch rate all of a sudden I'm pretty sure I had a problem with humidity with one hatch but since I started using the egg cartons all of a sudden some eggs that should be going into lockdown are not developed enough therefore drowning then some that are developed enough are just not hatching I don't understand out of 5 of my own eggs 1 is hatching the rest veins are gone and no movement nothing waiting for this egg to hatch before eggtopsy but I wanted to get opinions on egg cartons if they could be the problem I dry incubate and have check temp and humidity over and over with different thermometers and hygrometers the only thing I can figure is the egg cartons advice opinions anything it's driving me nuts !!!!

 

[dbcooper02]

What kind of incubator? Circulated or still air? How are you using the cartons, turning the eggs, etc?

 

[MSH]

I'm using a still air hovabator I prop the cartons up on one side them change to the other side and rotate them around in the cartons so that each egg is never int he exact same place too long the egg cartons have the bottoms cut out for more air flow I keep the eggs is the same carton because the cartons are labeled according to what pen they came out of if that makes since the humidity in the incubator stays around 30 % and the hatcher I use is homeade out of the styrofoam that is in commercial freezers it has a glass top and humidity depending on if I fill all the cups or not stays 65%-70% and 100.0 degrees I use egg cartons in it to help with the hatch goo lol I thought maybe the cartons in the hatcher were making it harder for the chicks to hatch maybe but can't figure out how that would be I think I'm just having bad luck lol if I didn't have so many egg in the incubater now I would just wait till spring to do anymore lol but of course there are some in the mail and plenty in the incubater lol I thought about just going and buying another incubater to use as a hatcher but thats just not in the budget right now

 

[dbcooper02]

That's what I was afraid of. In a still air incubator the air stratifies or layers. It is considerably warmer at the top than at the bottom. So in my opinion the carton turning method in a still air incubator just won't work. The eggs spend half their time too warm and the other half too cool. You can add a fan or go back to laying the eggs on their side and hand turning and you will be back to the hatches you had before you tried the carton. Its not too hard to keep track of which are which if you mark them with a pencil. Instead of the X and O to track your turning you can mark them X and A, X and B etc

 

[kellyn]

I've been told it's better to hatch eggs in a carton quite a few times and I honestly do think it'd work better. I use styrafoam coz paper sucks out the humidity, and having lotsa humidity in my incubator is a challenge in itself.

Put a pc fan in your incubator and hatcher. But be careful, I blew my first one up bc I wiredit in wrong. It shouldn't shock ya tho.

I have to this day, never hatched a single chick in a still air inubator. Iv hatched them under lights once, got two chicks! A crippled one and a gorgeous buff cross hen that I shoulda NEVER gived to my grandma coz her **** dogs killed it. I did it when I was in 4th grade~

Well, at least your temperatures are staying constant. I think I fried my eggs. Faulty electric thermometer/hygrometer.