Low humidity under broody hens?

[Skyesrocket]

Four of my silkie hens went broody together on 20 eggs. They had seperate nests but I suspect that they were stealing eggs back and forth from each other.
Anyway the first egg pipped yesterday and when I checked it this morning it was dead inside of the shell. The membrane had dried up. One chick hatched without problems. Two more eggs were pipped but the membranes were dry and they were having trouble getting out. I carefully peeled some of the shell off and left them to kick off the rest. Only one chick lived, the other one still died. They both had already absorbed the sacks.
I can't figure out why the eggs are so dry.
We have had a wet and cool summer. Nighttime lows in the 50's and daytime highs in the 70's.
Is there anyway I can raise the humidity underneath of the hens? I know how to do it in an incubator, but never had this problem with hens hatching their own eggs.
I lent my incubator to a friend, but can get it back if it looks like the whole hatch will be ruined. It will take some time to regulate the temp and humidity so I'm not sure which way to go. Should I leave the eggs under the hens or move them to the incubator?
I would appreciate any advice. Is anyone else having trouble with low humidity underneath their hens?

 

[One Acre Wonder Farm]

Never had a broody hen (but I do have a broody duck on eggs right now

) so I've never had this happen. But for upping the humidity inder a broody, if you're worried they'll shrinkwrap, could you lif her up and mist the eggs lightly with water? Then once she sits again she might somewhat contain that humidity?

I'm sure others will come along with better advice.

 

[Skyesrocket]

Good Luck with your duck hatch!
Thanks for the advice. I didn't think about misting the eggs.
I think I figured out what is going on. The four hens set up shop on the ground behind one of the plastic doghouses I set up for them to nest in inside of their pen. Which is inside of the barn. I gave up trying to convince them to lay inside of the house and put hay on the floor for them.
Because they were each brooding next to each other they kept stealing eggs back and forth. That didn't seem to effect the development of the eggs, but now that they are pipping, and the hens are still stealing eggs back and forth the eggs are drying out during the shuffle back and forth.
To make matters worse, a hen that didn't go broody has now decided she wants to get in on the hatching. So, she stole one egg and made herself a nest in the middle of the whole group of them. Unfortunately two of the chicks got too close to her and she pecked them pretty bad. One died and the other I brought inside for safe keeping.
I gave up on the whole bunch of them and brought the eggs inside and am using the incubator to hatch them out.
Lesson learned. I won't let a group of them bunch up together again. I have had good hatches from them this year, but I put each hen into a rabbit hutch by herself when she went broody and all went well. I even had a showgirl hen hatch out 6 turkey eggs that she is the proud momma of. I figured this time I would let them take a more natural approach and ended up with this mess.
Thanks again, Carrie

 

[Laurieks]

I'm about to mist under a hen... it's very dry outside; I looked inside the one pip and see movement but it looks dry-ish. she has had other hens move in to sleep at night, so the eggs may have moved a bit.
It's been 80-90 for the last week out there. I put in a few handfuls of grass hay (goat leftovers) dunked in water, around the edges of her box.
I'm so proud of this hen, she's from a show pair my son had in 4H a million years ago. The raccoon got her DH a few years ago and she became an egg eater....until a month ago when she became broody again.
Somebody stop me if misting is wrong!