Poor hatch results, getting ready to try again!

[rsarns]

Ok, I have hatched 7 out of 30 shipped eggs in the past. Now I am about to try again, will be setting 24 eggs tomorrow, and yes they are shipped eggs. I received 1 dozen yesterday and the other which was supposed to be here yesterday should get here today. I am going to wait and set them all together after allowing the 2nd dozen to sit for 24 hours. I have tried on the first batch keeping humidity set at 50% and temp stable at 100, then at lockdown bumped humidity to 60%.. only 3 hatched out of that. Then the next I tried humidity at 30-40% and bumped it to 60% at lockdown, 4 hatched. These are Marans eggs and very hard to candle. Once again Marans eggs.... so what is the best humidity settings or am I in the ballpark? ALso, how the heck can you candle dark eggs? I have tried highpower LED flashlights and can't see anything. I have read and re-read the candling sticky thread. Appreciate any help as I would really like to make sure its not something I am doing to get these poor hatch rates.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

During the extreme heat I never rest eggs that are shipped. I place right into the preheated bator with the turner off for the first 24/36 hours. With the extreme temps eggs can start develop, and cooling can actually hurt their development.

You don't say what type of bator you are using. We use Brinsea here, days 1-18 humidity is usually 35-40% day 19+ is 60-70% for chickens and 70-80% for ducks with the temp at 99.5. These are a forced air bator.

Candling dark eggs is hard. Use a small flashlight with as high a lume output that you can get. Candle in a room that has no windows (closet/panty) so you have no external light pollution when looking.

Shellie

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[Gypsy07]

If you're not sure what humidity, you can weight your eggs to figure it out. Eggs should lose roughly 13% of their weight by day 18 of incubation, so if you want to make sure that happens, weigh your eggs when you candle them and adjust your humidity accordingly to make sure you get them to the correct weight loss.

Only problem here is: infertile/non developing eggs lose weight at a different rate from fertile and developing ones, so you really need to know by day 10 or so which ones are fertile for the weighing thing to work properly. And if you're having problems candling very dark eggs, you might not be able to tell which ones are developing.

One thing I'd mention is that from what I read here on the forum, there seem to be much more folk having problems due to too-high humidity than due to too-low humidity. And 50% humidity days 1-18 definitely sounds too high to me. Some people do use 50% and have good success with it, but that's after trial and error to see what suits them best, so unless you have had previous success with that figure, I'd imagine it was too high. I've read on here that Marans eggs have thicker shells and lose moisture more slowly than most other eggs, so need a lower humidity for incubating. But I've never hatched any myself so I don't know how correct that is, like I say it's just what I've read on here.

Your two previous hatches, what was up with all the ones that didn't hatch? Were they non developers, early quitters, late quitters, died after pipping? That might give us a clue as to what might have gone wrong for you. Of course, it could all just be down to the eggs being shipped...

 

[rsarns]

Had some that never developed, and some that were late quiters, and 2 that died during pipping. Majority never even tried to develop, not fertile?

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

If they were clear (just yolks and whites) and no development they could have not been fertile, they could have been juggled around so much in the mail they weren't going to develop.

 

[rsarns]

Good idea on the bheat and shipping, went ahead and put them in the incubator, with the turner turned off until tomorrow. I have the Hovabator 1588, with auto egg turner. I am going to try to keep the humidity down to 35-40% until lockdown, then bump it up to 60-65%.

 

[Gypsy07]

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If you bought them from a half decent seller they were probably fertile but damaged during shipping. I recently had 18 eggs in my bator and 12 of them didn't develop at all. They were sent to me for free by a friend I trust so I'm sure they were fertile to begin with but just had a rough trip...

 

[TeePants]

My homemade incubator doesn't have an auto turner and is still air... should I really just stick the eggs when they get here in the incubator as soon as I get them and leave them alone for 24 hours? That makes me very nervous!

The auction we won was for only 4+ extras and they should be here tomorrow or Sat, but with so few eggs to work with I'm afraid if we do something wrong we won't have any hatch at all... Should I order some more and rest the ones we have until the additional eggs come in? We're not looking to have a lot hatch, 2-4 would be sufficient. IDK, it would just be heartbreaking to have them all die on us. C'est la vie, I guess.

 

[BairleaFarm]

You had about the same results from eggs i had shipped a month ago. The resting thing is a good point. I too am trying again. 14 dozen eggs will be set by next week. I lucked out and these are all local or from my girls. Good luck to ya and hatch on.