Newbie at incubating..

[alpinefaith]

#1 of 2
a day ago
Are my eggs going to hatch?? I have 30 eggs incubating, it is now day 22. So far, one healthy chick has hatched, and 2 others pipped and then died. I also removed one rotten egg and one that didnt develop. Temp has been constant, maybe went up a degree yesterday, but came back down overnight. Humidity is holding at 75%. Just trying to understand where I went wrong. I had seen 2 of the remaining eggs rocking, but no movement now for the last 24 hrs. Did they die? I know they don't all hatch at the same time, but the recent bad hatches have me worried. I was late taking them off the turner for final lock down, could that have over stressed the chicks? What else should I be doing?

#2 of 2
9 hours ago
Update: one more survivor hatched, and another pipped and died. Are they weak chicks? What causes this? Waiting for the rest of the eggs to pip....

 

[BaileyMChicks]

What has your temp and humidity been? Too high humidity during development can cause the egg to not lose enough moisture (the air cell would be too small) resulting in the chicks drowning at hatch. If the temps were too high it can cause a ton of issues(I'm not exactly sure on what, you can look at other threads on temps being too high for details). If the humidity was too low it can cause the egg to lose too much moisture(the air cell would be too big), causing the chick to be shrink-wrapped, ultimately making it unable to hatch out. If the temps were too low it can cause the development of the chicks to slow, making them late to hatch. The chicks might be weak from a lot of things. Unhealthy parent stock is one cause. I'm pretty new to hatching as well, so I hope someone else with more experience helps out. I've only hatched out chicks in my incubator twice. The first time I tried, The temps got too high(I had it somewhere where the temps fluctuated too much), and out of 8 eggs(most of which I'm pretty sure were fertilized. I have high fertility on my eggs, that's why I'm pretty sure), only 3 started developing, two hatched, and one died at 3 days old. The survivor had a partially unabsorbed yolk sack, and one eyelid isn't formed right. The second time, I set 8 eggs again, and I thought this time everything is going to be perfect, and nothing is going to go wrong. On day 2, I took out an unfertilized egg(I could tell, and when I cracked it open, there wasn't even a 'bulls eye', just a normal little white dot that you see on an unfertilized egg) and put in another egg. The next day(day 3 and 1), I went out with some friends for the day, and when I got back about 5 hours later, the incubator was off and the temp was 74 degrees F. I thought they were all going to be dead the next day. I was so upset. But the next day, when I candled, the embryos were bigger, and on some I could see heartbeats. They were still alive! I ended up with another unfertilized egg, but out of the 7, I had one quit around day 10-12, and the rest hatched out fine. Including Milo, the egg that was put in 2 days later. So yeah, the whole point of that story was just to tell you not to be too upset, and that everyone starts out with some issues. In case you want to know, the incubator I use is a brinsea mini eco, and I keep my temp at between 98.4-99.7 and my humidity at 35-40 the first 18 days, and up it to somewhere around 68-80 the last 3 days. This is what I did the second hatch, and what worked rather well, I'd say. I kept my temp lower than normal because brinsea mini ecos come with a built in mercury thermometer, that is supposed to be factory calibrated, but I also got a digital themometer/hydrometer, and with that at 99.5, the other built in one reads 102-103. I should add that the built in one it close to the top of the incubator, but since it's a forced air it technically shouldn't matter...But I kept the digital at about 98.8, and the built in one at 102. And that seemed to work fine. I hope future hatches go better for you. Good luck

 

[alpinefaith]

Thanks for replying! I wonder if my humidity started too high. It was around 60% until the end when I bumped it to 75. The temp has been 97-98 all along, pretty constant. Since that 2nd chick hatched late, nothing else has tried. Day 25 now and I'm about to give up. Even if they were late they should have come by now. I don't think my hens were the problem, but maybe I collected eggs for too long and they were too old for incubating.. I would have thought more of them would hatch though.

I'll just have to try again later, and keep the humidity lower. Thanks for the encouragement! I really felt awful that so many tried to hatch and couldn't. But I got two healthy chicks so I call that a win.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Thanks for replying! I wonder if my humidity started too high. It was around 60% until the end when I bumped it to 75. The temp has been 97-98 all along, pretty constant. Since that 2nd chick hatched late, nothing else has tried. Day 25 now and I'm about to give up. Even if they were late they should have come by now. I don't think my hens were the problem, but maybe I collected eggs for too long and they were too old for incubating.. I would have thought more of them would hatch though.

I'll just have to try again later, and keep the humidity lower. Thanks for the encouragement! I really felt awful that so many tried to hatch and couldn't. But I got two healthy chicks so I call that a win.

60% humidity the first 17 days is often a death sentence. I use 30% for standard eggs (usually running dry) and I get nervous at 45% unless the air cells point to needing the higher humidity. Best way to judge what humidity your eggs need is to monitor the air cells. You can read more here on humidity:http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity

If you are incubating at 97-98 degrees, that's too low even for forced air and will produce delayed development and weak chicks hatching late if they hatch. Forced air should maintain 99.5 degrees and still air should be 101-102F with the temps taken near the tops of the eggs. Another big thing is have you ever checked the thermometers for accuracy? If your thermometers/hygrometers have never been checked then they could be off and result in complications as well.

As for collecting eggs, many people will only collect for one week. The popular recommendation is not to set eggs over 10 days and most everyone agrees that eggs at 2 weeks and older result in significant drop of hatch rates.

 

[alpinefaith]

Thanks amylynn, that link was very informative. Humidity was a source of great confusion for me, everyone seems to say something different about it. I guess all I can do now is learn from my mistakes and do it differently next time. I think my thermometer/hygrometer was accurate, there was a second one in the Bator and they always read the same. Thanks for all your help!