Last incubations tally

[Riocotesei]

Here is a recorded tally and overall look put from my hatch, It may help others I don't know. I f you know any answers to my questions that'd be cool too. Here it is, hope you like it.

I had started out with 33 Leghorn eggs on the 1st in my plain jane, still air, non-turner, Little Giant. Did I mention it was my first hatch? lol.
Anyways I got to day 7 and two were infertile. Ok now down to 31. I hand turned 3 times a day same times. Got to day 14, 12 seemed dead. I marked them and put them back in. On day 18 I only candled the ones with question marks. All were still the same. Checked them out and died young maybe day 8-10.
So my number went down to 19. I left the 19 that had no question marks alone they did not get candled again. Day 20 rolled around 9 pips.
Next day (22) two chicks out and couple momre pips. At that point I thought I'd had 11 defenet hatches. I waited and waited. More hatched, end of that day I had 7 chicks out. Where were the others? one had zipped and stopped. two were piped nd done nothing since day 20. I was worried, but waited another day.
Next day (23) nothing more. I decieded to open the zipper and to pippers. The zip had died...I don't know what happened? Looked dry, I knew I should have helped when I thought I should have. The two pippers were dead too...why? One looked really little and didn't absorb the yolk. If it wasn't ready why'd it pip? The other appeared to be too big in the shell. Suffocated? or maybe couldn't rotate in the shell. IDK. The other Pipper was alive! Woo good stuff! I took it out of the shell and put it in the bator. Looked weak but s/he lived and is still alive and well!

Still had some eggs still in there so I continued to wait...and wait. Last night, day 24, I opened them up...all were very developed. at least to day 20 or something.. they had feathers, all formed.. why didn't they pip?
More or less I've been confronted with more questions than answers.
I'm going to do another incubation. Things I'll change:

Auto Turner
Less candling
Trying egg carton method

All 8 chicks that hatched are alive and well to this day. So not counting the first 2 that were not fertile thats about a 24% hatch rate. I'm happy any hatched for my first try. Next time I hope it will be better.

 

[shelleyd2008]

We have talked before about the LG still air. I have the turner with mine, and I have had almost 90% hatch with mine. I only candle 2-3 times: day 8-10, 14-ish, and sometimes day 18, but mine usually hatch early. What was the temp and humidity? You said one was too big, that could be caused by too much humidity. IDK why the one would look dried out, though. I usuaaly run my humidity around 40% days 1-18, and (if they don't hatch first!) about 50% after that. I can't seem to get mine to go any higher, for a long time anyway. IDK if this helps. maybe someone else has an idea?

 

[deerman]

my guess temp. peak to high sometime from day 7 to day 14. the 3 time a day turning was ok. Check temp at top of eggs 101 still air.
What was the humdity??

 

[Riocotesei]

I guess I should have mentioned that..lol I'm cool...

Humidity days 1-18 was 41-45%
Temp was pretty constant 99.5-101.5
Last 3 days hum. was 60% then as they hatched it went way up...like 70's low 80's..I know thats bad.
I had two themometers in there. One was a normal one that came with the bator and sat on top of the eggs. The other was a digital that sat on the mesh wire.
When I opened the bator to turn, I lost very little heat and it regained fast. One thing that may be a problem is it's in the west side of the house so in the evening it'd get up to 101.8 max. I don't think that do anything drastic....
Even some of the last eggs I opened some were dryish and some normal.
I guess it's possible at night that it'd fluctuate?? I stay up late though, 1-2ish and check on it all the time. I just don't think that happened, but it's still possible.