Loads of early deaths?

[Fraoch21]

I set 9 bali runners, 2 call ducks, 2 cochins, 10 orpington bantams and 12 brahmas roughly a week ago and i candled them all today. Only one bali runner was still going, all the others havve blood rings or just dead embyros, one call duck was infertile the other was a dead embryo, both cochins were infertile, 4 batams were infertile, other 4 were with blood rings and 2 look fine and lastly 4 brahmas had blood rings, 1 infertile and 7 are fine.
So all in all out of 27 fertile eggs only 10 are still alive

The bator they are in is my first time using it so am i doing something wrong? Its automatic turning every 4 hours and the temperature did fluctuate a bit in the first couple of days till i got it settled down. Is that the problem with all the early deaths?
Thank you for any help

 

[Egghead_Jr]

The two major causes of early death, blood ring, are improper storage prior to incubating or incubation temperature too high.

 

[AngelaPenny]

When I first started reading posts here on BYC, it seemed as though any loss of an embryo could be traced back to the handlers mistakes.

I felt very defeated. My first hatch wasn't great and I blamed absolutely everything on myself. It wasn't great for the confidence, and I wasn't sure that I wanted to try incubating again, since I clearly caused to many of these "deaths".

However....I've done a lot of reading, a lot of research and talked to some experts, and I feel much better about it now.

Sure, we 'handlers' can be the cause for things, maybe we stored them too long, didn't store them properly, incubated too high, etc.

But taking credit for all that goes wrong or right in a hatch is pretty egotistical, don't you think?

Let's think about what has to happen before that egg ever reaches our hand...there is a hen and a rooster involved, with all of the complexities of mating, and egg creation, and passing on genes and traits. We cannot take credit for the work or faults that happen within those animals.

Maybe a hen is genetically predisposed to lay early quitters. Maybe a rooster favors a few ladies, giving them the most attention, and sperm, and the other ladies get the "leftovers', or the sperm that doesn't really carry his best genes.

We cannot be to blame for everything that goes wrong in a hatch, and please don't think that way.

Sure, look at your methods, read what successful hatchers do and make sure your practices are the same. But don't beat yourself up if you are doing everything correctly and things still go a little wonky.

Good luck with the rest of your eggs.

 

[Fraoch21]

Thank you so much Angela, I actually never considered that it is sometimes out of our hands

My last hatch was 100% hatch rate but that was in my old incubator so i just assumed that if i could do it once i could do it with my other hatches. Although i think this time at least some of the deaths must be me based on what Egghead said since the temperature did go up a bit for a few hours but still thank you for making me feel better about it and i just have to keep trying and improving

 

[cmfarm]

Where these shipped eggs? If so that had a lot to do with it.

 

[Fraoch21]

cmfarm, only the brahmas were shipped and i got the bantams off someone a few miles away but the rest are our own birds