No chicks after lockdown....What are we doing wrong?

[jlquick30]

DH has now tried three clutches.... has lots of eggs make it to lockdown day, and then we lose them all. We started some on 6/9 and all were gone around day 19, we think. He candled on day 23 and they had barely changed at all from when he put them in the hatcher. Same thing with another round from 6/11. This week, we put in one lone surviving egg from 6/16 - yesterday, on Day 20 the egg was rocking. Now, Day 21 and we've seen no movement or change all day.

He's been watching the temp and humidity and there are no major fluctuations. Nothing to disturb the incubator. What is he doing wrong?

 

[The Chickeneer]

It probably has something to do with the humidity. You might be putting it a little to high during lockdown is what it sounds like. Try only adding the amount of water you would for the last 3 days as you would the first 18 days. Humidity automatically goes up by itself when a chick starts hatching, this plus you adding more water during lockdown may be what is causing the poor hatches. Too high of a humidity could make the chick to big inside the egg preventing it from being able to turn itself around at the sipping stage of hatching, not to mention they could also drown in high humidity.

Whats happening to you is what always used to happen whenever I tried to hatch ducks, they always made it to lockdown but none ever hatched. I helped one hatch, and the head was very much bigger that it should be, and so was the body, because it grew too big for the egg from soaking up the humidity and it couldn't move inside the egg.

Better luck next time!