incubation :(

[emae623]

I am having a heck of a time with my incubating this year. Last year I hatched a bunch of eggs all willy nilly. This year I have had a terrible hatch rate and need some advice. First of all I just put eggs in when I find them in the coop or at least for my guineas that's the way it is. But I put a bunch of chicken eggs in at the same time and plenty developed and died. Humidity is 60ish (give or take some) and the one air plug is out (that was my mistake with hatching the first round). The temp is spot on. What on earth am I doing wrong. I candle often after like 10 days and I don't typically do a lock down because I put them in at all different times so that doesn't work. Should I only put them all in at the same time and be sure to do a lock down? I have had a few hatch but just not what I feel it should be. Any ideas welcome.

 

[LaurEliz]

I have only ever put eggs in one day apart from each other to be sure I can do lock down fairly accurately. I have had pretty fair hatching rates, but I do know that there are people who put in new eggs every day continuously and do just fine as well. I just think it is riskier.

I make my humidity 45-50 range the entire time and then, of course, raise it a bit during lock down, but I have heard different humidity levels are more successful in different places around the world, too. Are your air cells developing as they should be? That could potentially be the issue if the cells aren't growing enough throughout the incubation, but it's only a guess. I assume you're turning them as often as you're supposed to as well, so humidity causing small air cells and maybe just an overall bad quality of egg are the only things I could think of, but by no means am I an expert on incubation. I've just dabbled with it a bit.