Late Quitters and Chicks pipping at the wrong end/suffocating during hatch

[duckncover]

I'm searching for a reason that my serama/bantam chicken eggs are consistently quitting late into the hatch, pipping from the wrong end, and I've had a few suffocate while waiting for them to zip. I also hatch button and coturnix quail and I'm getting well over 80% hatch rate with them using the same exact equipment. I have 2 Nurture Right 360s and 1 Brinsea Mini II Advance. All 3 have 1 standard egg tray and one quail tray. Temps have been staying where they should be the whole hatch and humidity has been very easy to control. The chickens are definately not breed standard seramas but not far off either however the 2 older hens are obviously mixes and one of them looks more like a Japanese. I've seen people say these breeds have lethal genes but it says 25% or something like that. First hatch ended in 4 live chicks out of 18 eggs. 2 of those chicks needed rescue. 4 out of the 5 that external pipped did so on the middle or total wrong side of the egg. You could tell they were stuck and well past the point of getting out on their own. No veins. The last chick suffocated after pipping on the wrong side. The last 2 hatches I have ended up with a single chick that needed some pretty heavy assistance and it's horrible to hear them crying about being alone until they are strong enough to mix in with the others. There has to be a reason for this happening to them and not the quail chicks.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Seramas are notorious for poor hatchability. IMO, the reason eggs don't end up in viable chicks starts long before incubation begins.
Much depends on breeder nutrition, health. egg collection and storage conditions.

Assuming eggs are properly set in the turner, turning was sufficient, proper handling, temperature and humidity was proper throughout, sometimes malpositions come from round shaped eggs and again, nutrition, especially vitamins A and B12.

 

[duckncover]

Seramas are notorious for poor hatchability. IMO, the reason eggs don't end up in viable chicks starts long before incubation begins.
Much depends on breeder nutrition, health. egg collection and storage conditions.

Assuming eggs are properly set in the turner, turning was sufficient, proper handling, temperature and humidity was proper throughout, sometimes malpositions come from round shaped eggs and again, nutrition, especially vitamins A and B12.

I would say that most of the eggs are of proper shape and shell quality but that is a good point. My birds are eating Purina Flock Raiser supplemented with oyster shells. They get treats almost every day consisting of dried solider worms, cracked corn, and scratch-type organic seed/grain mixture. They have an herb garden sticking through the run but I rarely see it picked at. I also infrequently throw them some veggies but they are not consistently a hit. I will occasionally scramble them some quail eggs as well. But I don't over do it with the treats. They did recently go crazy about me giving them a bunch of kale. What do you personally recommend for A and B12? Tractor Supply supplements? Different foods? I do want the best I can offer for all of my birds. The chickens are my pets.

 

[3KillerBs]

I am too new a breeder to have personal experience about this, but I have read that you can get this kind of issue from lines where the parent stock has had generations of assisted hatches -- leading to chicks that are genetically disposed to not hatch properly.

One story I read of a turkey breeder who took over an entire flock from someone retiring from the hobby told of taking, IIRC, at last 3 generations to get back to a normal level of hatchability.