Never took vent plug out until lock down!! Need answers

[Chicklady92]

I am on day 19 and on lock down! When placing the eggs onto the wire mesh in incubator out of the egg Turner I realized that I never took one of the vent plugs out. Ive always kept the humidity between 50 and 60% and on lock down now 65-70%. Will this affect my hatch rate? The incubator is inside of my house so in a controlled heat and humidity environment. A fee of the shipped eggs look to have started to develop but never went passed blood clots. Any suggestions and or answers!! Im hoping to hear chirping tomorrow.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

There's really nothing else you can do now except keep the plugs out.
Low oxygen after day 13 (when oxygen demand increases) could have caused a problem. What kind of incubator and how many eggs are in it?

 

[Sue S]

When I incubated my duck eggs, I asked questions about it & read the manual that came with the incubator & everybody had a different opinion about it, manual said remove 1 during lockdown, some people said remove both at the start of incubating, & others said they never remove them, so I decided to leave both of mine in & I had a successful hatch, 4 out of 5 hatch. So, my opinion is do what you feel is best, if your temp & humidity have been fine & chicks are forming then leave it be

 

[sylviethecochin]

This is a comment, rather than reassurance.

Whether the lack of airflow is a problem probably depends on the size of your incubator and how many eggs you have. A lot of eggs'll need a correspondingly large amount of oxygen. A few eggs won't consume nearly as much. A big container holds more oxygen than a small container. I would expect a few eggs to be fine in a larger incubator, especially if there's a fan circulating the air.

 

[Chicklady92]

Sorry for the late response as its been hectic. Eggs are hatchimg so far 8 eggs have hatched and 10 more to go. I have a 42 egg incubator.