Low Hatch Rate

[Claires Poultry]

Neither are Brinsea but both have gotten some very good reviews from users both on this forum and off. I decided the IncuView fit my needs just a bit better than the NR360 just simply because the included turner works with more than just chicken eggs and I wanted that option available. If you look around a bit I'm sure you can find plenty of people on here willing to give their personal experiences with both of these.

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/harris-farms-nurture-right-360

https://incubatorwarehouse.com/incuview-egg-incubator.html

Thank you for the links! I will check these out!

 

[Mary Chapman]

Is your incubator a still air? If so it needs to be 100 to 101. I keep my incubator with the fan at 99.5 to 99.9 I dry hatch with a 30% humidity thru the entire incubation until lock down. Then I raise it only to 40-50% and not higher. Chicks can drown in the egg with to high of a humidity. I have a breed of chicken that needs the 101 temp in the still air or their toes curl.

 

[Claires Poultry]

Is your incubator a still air? If so it needs to be 100 to 101. I keep my incubator with the fan at 99.5 to 99.9 I dry hatch with a 30% humidity thru the entire incubation until lock down. Then I raise it only to 40-50% and not higher. Chicks can drown in the egg with to high of a humidity. I have a breed of chicken that needs the 101 temp in the still air or their toes curl.

No, it is not a still air incubator. I did raise the temperature to see if it would warm up but it didn't work. Because of the way it is built, it needs the fan to transfer the heat and warm up the incubator. Since the fan isn't working it won't warm up, therefore I can no longer use it.
Thank you!

 

[Sprayanimal]

The majority of the eggs were fertile when I candled them. There was only a few that weren't. I keep the temperature between 99.3 and 99.6 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity at 40-50%. The incubator also has an egg turner so I don't have to turn the eggs by hand.
I wonder if the low hatch rate has something to do with the feed that the chickens are eating. I just feed them wheat. But the interesting thing is I feed my Muscovy ducks the exact same thing and they have great hatch rates - sometimes, actually quite often they have a 100% hatch rate.

If you’re duck eggs have a great hatch rate then I would lean towards something is up with you’re chickens. I had a older rooster that tended to have low rate rates. And i wanted too introduce some new blood to the flock. So i got a new fairly young rooster. And went from 60% to 90. Some hatches were 100%. Theses were cream legbars. 80% was my best with Black Copper Marans. This in a older wafer thermostat Gqf cabinet incubator. My brother had a new sportsman and never came close to achieving my rates. Normally if you have fully developed chicks that dont hatch. I would say average humidity first 18 days was too high. Eggs should loose 14% of weight first 18 days to allow proper air cell size. Hope this helps.

 

[Claires Poultry]

If you’re duck eggs have a great hatch rate then I would lean towards something is up with you’re chickens. I had a older rooster that tended to have low rate rates. And i wanted too introduce some new blood to the flock. So i got a new fairly young rooster. And went from 60% to 90. Some hatches were 100%. Theses were cream legbars. 80% was my best with Black Copper Marans. This in a older wafer thermostat Gqf cabinet incubator. My brother had a new sportsman and never came close to achieving my rates. Normally if you have fully developed chicks that dont hatch. I would say average humidity first 18 days was too high. Eggs should loose 14% of weight first 18 days to allow proper air cell size. Hope this helps.

Thank you for sharing your experience with hatching eggs! Do you think a one year old rooster is too old?

 

[Fishkeeper]

A one year old rooster should be at the peak of his everything. That's not old, that's a bird that's just recently become fully mature.