Hi, dont know if this is the right post, but here I go, just bought an incubator and its been a total mess, first time just 3 chicks out of 48 eggs, most of the them were too old eggs but didnt have more fresh eggs so I decided to try the old ones, anyway there was a lot of room and nothing to lose, by day 18 only 12 had developed and showed movement so I locked with just 12, but as I said only 3 hatched, the other 9 seemed to have died after day 18.
I decided to give it a second chance and put 25 eggs, no more than 12 days old and by day 18 this is what i got:
5 unfertile (or embryo didnt even start developing)
4 with blood rings and very poor development
16 with good development and movement
I was very excited because this time it was a pretty decent number 75% of the fertile eggs, 60% of the total compared to first time 25%, so I locked down with 16 growing babies but again by day 21 just 4 chickens hatched, waited 3 more days but no movement, no peeps, no nothing, so I took the rest out, turn off the incubator and opened the eggs, and this time I guess they also died between day 19 and 21.
I feel pretty bad as I guess is my fault they are dying (im killing them which is the same), Im stopping the turner by day 18 and raising humidity up to 60-70%, the only thing I have noticed is that when I take out the turner temperature falls down by 1°C in my external thermometer so I rise it for 0.5°C to compensate, i guess this happens as the eggs when taking off the turner are put lower and farther from the heat element.
Please need advice, I think the incubator is doing its job, its me the one failing. Here are my notes of this latter attempt.
Day °C MAX % MAX °C MIN % MIN
1 37,8 59 36,5 35
2 37,8 56 36,9 40
3 38,1 49 37,2 46
4 38,1 59 37 30
5 37,8 59 36,6 50
6 37,9 76 33,7 45
7 38 49 37,5 45
8 38 50 37,6 47
9 38 49 38,7 40
10 37,9 62 37,5 49
11 38 61 37,5 57
12 38,7 59 37,4 38
13 37,9 59 37,6 50
14 38 62 37,1 37
15 37,8 60 37,2 45
16 37,8 60 37,3 52
17 37,7 59 37,2 54
18 37,5 69 36,2 56
19 37,7 70 37 55
20 37,5 70 36,3 63