mixed signals on bad hatch - need help

[gooshnter99]

Hello all - I'm new to the forum and have a question that has probably been asked before, so I apologize in advance. I just hatched a batch of eggs and had a 50% hatch rate. When I checked the eggs that didn't hatch to try and figure out why, what I'm seeing seems inconsistent to me. One chick hatched a full day early and is quite healthy. A bunch more hatched normally with no problems. A handful pipped the shell but didn't progress without some help pulling away a bit of the shell so they could push out of the egg on their own. These invariably had bulging at the navel and were very weak. A few more pipped but died in the shell and a couple never pipped and died in the shell. Those that died in the shell also had the bulging navels.

The early hatcher would seem to indicate that the incubator temp was too high, but that's doesnt' seem consistent with the weak hatchers and the bulging navels, which as I understand it would indicate temps were too low. None of it seems consistent with the rest of the healthy hatchers that had no problems and hatched right on time. Anyone have any ideas whether this may just be weak genetic stock or whether this may have been something with the incubation temp or humidity? I don't believe humidity was a problem. If anything, the temp could have been off, although I don't even think that was the problem. Help??

 

[Doc Henry]

I have had similar problems in the past those problems came while using still air incubators. I added fans and that helped a lot. What kind of incubator were you using? I also have noted after 20 or so hatches sometimes you just have a bad hatch and the next time same incubator same temps same humidity you have a great hatch. The still air incubators tend to create little hot and cold spots you can remedy this by adding a fan or by putting a jar full of water with a lid on it in the incubator the idea is that it heats up and holds heat so you don't get cold spots around the edges. I opted for fans since I want all the bator space I can get. I just got a cabinet incubator so hopefully the days of messing with multiple styrofoam incubators and humidity problems are over.

 

[geebs]

staggered hatches can be linked to fertility and old eggs. Odds are the early hatcher was older than the rest... Bulging navel means they had just absorbed the yolk and were getting ready to hatch... by opening the bator you compromised the hatch by letting out valuable humidity therefore halting the hatching process. The early one was okay... The problem came in when the helping and humidity lost... This is just a guess and a very common problem. Good luck on other hatches.

 

[Kittymomma]

Depending on what kind of bator you're using you could see results of too low temps and too high temps in the same hatch. I have an lg still air and the temp does not stay the same throughout the unit. Too off set this problem I move the eggs around the bator when I turn them.

Did you notice that the earlier chicks were towards the center and the later hatching chicks were out by the edges?

 

[featherbaby]

This was my first, and probably my last hatch experience.

I borrowed a still air styro incubator and disinfected it well. I put in 8 eggs from my own splash hen. Only 3 of them hatched.
I also purchased 8 silkie eggs from a reputable byc breeder which arrived quickly and in good shape. Only 2 of them hatched.

I kept the temp./humidity/turning consistent and stable throughout. When they went into lockdown I candled them and tossed 3 infertiles from my first batch of splashes. All others seemed to have a dark mass in them with an air bubble at the top.

I hear stories about others who have had temps drop to 65-70 for several hours, humidity problems and even cracked eggs.....and they have great hatches (way over 50%). So why did I have such a bad ratio after pampering mine?

I would like to learn from this, but I did everything by the book....so I don't know what went wrong?????

 

[gooshnter99]

This was actually a forced air incubator (fan in the top). Last time I used a still-air one and had a much better hatch - almost 70%. I thought the same thing about the early hatcher vs. the later hatchers, but the early hatching chick was toward the outside corner of the incubator, while most of the late hatchers or dead-in-shells were towards the middle. I was using a small styrofoam incubator with an automatic turner - not a Little Giant, but a Hova-Bator I think.

So it's apparently not just my imagination that the indicators regarding the potential temp/hatch problems are somewhat inconsistent then . . . I set two dozen eggs in this batch. 12 were White Leghorn eggs that I obtained directly from the Poultry Research Farm at the Univ. of Illinois, and I believe they were all fresh within a day or two of being laid when I set them. Of those, I think I had 8 of 12 hatch - including the one early hatcher. The other 12 were brown eggs - don't recall the varieties as I hatched them for someone else, although there were two varieties w/ 6 of each. Of those, only 4 hatched, one of which later died and two more of which are very visibly weaker and smaller than the Leghorns. Two of those brown eggs were infertile. I have no idea how long or under what conditions those eggs had been collected or stored before I set them.

I was wondering if it might not have just been a bad batch of brown eggs. Here's the weird thing though, of the ones that pipped but didn't hatch, those came equally from the white eggs and the brown eggs. Otherwise, I would have just automatically ascribed the problems as being a bad batch of brown eggs. That still seems like the most likely answer though, given the disparity in the hatch rates between the the two and the relative health of the chicks that did hatch from each of the two.

Regarding the bulging navels, I assumed that had to do with the yolk sac either not being fully absorbed or having just been absorbed. On a couple of the ones that died or hatched late, I could still see a small bit of yolk that hadn't yet been absorbed - about the size of a pea. What does that mean? Temps too high and chick hatched too early? In those cases, the chick was otherwise fully developed and filled the entire egg . . . they couldn't have gotten any bigger inside those eggs. An odd hatch for sure!