Massive die-off or is this normal?

Keggen

Songster
7 Years
May 24, 2012
264
1
108
Minnesota
My eggs are on day 17 and I have candled just about every night except a few. I discarded 5 non fertile and 1 death on day 14 but left 4 Welsummer ones that I was unsure of. Last night I finally gave up on them and sure enough they were not fertile. So now 11 eggs of the original 42 are gone.

Each time I have candled I have seen some jumpy movements in the good eggs and was always sure they were doing well. On day 15 I noticed they weren't moving as much as usual but didn't think much of it. Yesterday on day 16 I had a TON of trouble seeing movement in a lot of them. It was so much of them that I either have a massive die-off happening or am hoping maybe it is just normal for this stage for them to not move much. 5 of them showed no movement at all so I marked them and am going to check again tonight. My eyes started going buggy after trying to see into brown and green shells so I couldn't tell on some of them.

So is it normal for them to show such a decrease in movement at this stage? I tried candling from both sides just out of curiosity and it looks like it is clear on one end, dark in the middle and the air pocket at the other end. I am a little bit concerned that they might be loosing too much because the air pockets seem a little bit big. Should I increase the humidity to slow down the air pocket? I've been keeping it between 16-30% with the average right in the low 20's. It has gotten down to 16 when I add the water and then will spike to sometimes mid 40's and then ease down to the 20's.

Could the non-fertile Welsummers that I left in too long have caused the rest a problem?
 
What was the source of your eggs?

And frequent candling can be an issue - it is so fascinating that it is hard to resist, but handling the eggs so often increases the risk of contamination, disruption of the embryo, and - horror of all horrors - dropping a fertile egg and breaking it, usually on top of another egg in the incubator, resulting in the loss of both. Best to just candle at 7-10 days, then again on day 18 at lockdown. If you have to get a fix in between, just candle one or two.

I do carefully check my eggs daily for weeping or for bad smell, those stinkers need to be removed ASAP
 
So should I leave the ones I marked because of no movement? I was candling a lot because well, one, it is fun. But also to see if any showed signs of not growing so I could remove them. I will definitely stop though if it is my candling that is causing a problem. I was doing it about every other night this week and each egg for about 30 seconds to a minute. The ones I wasn't sure about were about 2 minutes at the most.

My eggs are from my hens and rooster.
 
I think a minute is excessive.
The excessive handling as was said is an issue too.
If I don't have a stinker or an obvious clear I leave them. Mostly because I can't see jack s.... through those dark shells.
 
I think you are going to have to work down a list to rule out the cause of your problem. Some things to consider:

How many hens does your rooster cover? Does he tend to have "favorites" and possibly ignore some hens? What kind of feed are your birds on?

How often do you collect eggs? Do you wash them? How do you store them before incubation?

What kind of incubator do you use? Have you used a CALIBRATED thermometer and hygrometer to check your incubator? Is it in an area that has temperature fluctuations? Is it disturbed or opened frequently?

This article is so very useful when incubating, if you have not read it you will really appreciate the advice it gives
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101
 

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