Incubation problems, any thoughts?

[supadave]

I've just incubated a total of 62 chicken eggs. Of the total, 11 of them did not begin to develop, 22 of them were later found dead in the shell without piping, and 29 hatched. Not sure what could have caused so many of them to fully develop and not hatch. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. thanks, dave

 

[bigredfeather]

Were the eggs shipped?

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

too low humidity during lockdown?

too high humidity during setting?

I'm just guessing based on things that I've done wrong.

 

[chicmom]

Hello-

What I'm wondering about are your humidity levels.......for chicks, you want the humidity to be around 60-65% the first 18 days, then up to 70% for the last three days. It's very important that for the last three days you don't turn the eggs, and you don't open the incubator.

http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G8353#humidity

Here's a nice website for you regarding incubation.

Hope this helps!
Sharon

 

[Sweetfolly]

Quote:
60-65% for the first 18 days sounds too high for chicks to me - I had a chick come out sticky and another drown in the shell when my humidity was around that level during the second week of incubation!

My Brinsea handbook puts the relative humidity for incubating chicken eggs is 40-50% - and of course, bumped up into the 60's for the hatch.

 

[chicmom]

Quote:
60-65% for the first 18 days sounds too high for chicks to me - I had a chick come out sticky and another drown in the shell when my humidity was around that level during the second week of incubation!

My Brinsea handbook puts the relative humidity for incubating chicken eggs is 40-50% - and of course, bumped up into the 60's for the hatch.

Here's another website with different levels than you describe....maybe it varies depending on climate......

http://shilala.com/incubating.html

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

the humidity levels you need during setting (days 1-18) are going to vary from place to place.

it's not a good idea to tell noobs what humidity they need.

 

[supadave]

thanks for the replies, no the eggs weren't shipped. I got the eggs from a friend. One thing that i should note is that when he brought them to me, they were in the carton with the pointed end up. Not sure if that would cause my problem or not. As far as humidity goes, I kept it at 50% for the first 18 days and 65% after that. Maybe my hygrometer is off?????

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Quote:
y'know, for some locations, that humidity might work. for me, no way. the eggs would not lose enough moisture and the peeps would drown when they pipped through the membrane.

i weigh my eggs regularly and adjust the humidity in order to increase/decrease weight loss, aiming for 12-14% on Day 18. it's labor-intensive, but i haven't really found any single magic number for humidity. and when i moved, i had a hard time adjusting.

 

[supadave]

thats a good idea. here in louisiana, the humidity stays on the high side. I guess its gonna be trial and error from here. Thanks again, dave