question on a bad hatch

[wingedshade]

I had a poor hatch too.(also a little giant 'bator) I posted about it in one of the hatch-a-longs but the post kind of got buried. Can I post a copy of it here?

 

[Nin315]

Sure! Any help on info welcome so we can all figure this out!I also posted about my dismal failure for the hatch a long...sorry, but it seemed like I was mostly ignored and felt like more of a failure/ murderer...: \

 

[Nin315]

Though I do appreciate this site, the info, and amazingly helpful ppl here..

 

[wingedshade]

I'll post it at lunch or break tomorrow, this tablet isn't letting me copy the pictures too.
Since posting, I rescued the stuck zipper, it's still alive, but looks off. Nothing else hatched so I turned off the incubator this evening. I was hoping a more experienced hatcher would see this and be able to give a guess on what went wrong.
This was my first hatch, 33% isn't too bad.

 

[linz44]

Yes

...

I had a poor hatch too.(also a little giant 'bator) I posted about it in one of the hatch-a-longs but the post kind of got buried. Can I post a copy of it here?
[/quotee

 

[linz44]

I have been reading up on hatching a lot and there seems to be so many things that can go wrong! The humidity is supposed to be a certain % depending on what point in the hatch your at and the temp is supposed to stay in a certain range. And then the turning has to be done correctly among other things. It's hard to say wether I've done everything correctly. I candled my eggs yesterday and I'm also wondering if anyone knows what the "blood ring" looks like? Its on a brown egg that has a fairly dark shell and I can see a sort of thick dark ring around the egg, would this mean it's a blood ring? I'm scared to throw eggs out if they aren't truly dead but I also don't want an explosive egg! I can see inside my americana eggs sell enough to know they look okay but im having a hard time knowing when to throw them out.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

To me it sounds as if the eggs were incubated at too low a temperature. Calibrating/checking the thermometer especially in a new incubator is essential - they all too frequently indicate incorrect temperatures.

Like Sourland said the incubation was too low of temperature. You mentioned it was a still air incubator. No worries, people get excellent hatches from those but they do need to be incubated at higher temperature. Even in fan models the temperature is layered, it's very dramatic in still air so where you measure and at what temp is critical for good hatch rates. If your using a turner or eggs are upright then get the temp to 101.5 F measured at top level of eggs. If eggs are on side, like your manually turning or last 3 days of hatch, measure the temp to 100.5 F. At these temps the internal of egg will be close to 99.5 F which is the goal.

Being your hatch started day 23 the temp was indeed low. You can't trust thermometers but have to start somewhere. By days late it's easily known your 2 degrees F low. That makes sense knowing your using a still air. Chang up the temp to what's stated above and you'll have a very good hatch. Note the day they hatch next round and tweak that temp a little to get the hatch to start late day 20, most hatch day 21 and finish up early day 22. Touch higher temp will speed up and touch lower will slow down incubation rate. In this way you can dial in your equipment for great hatches. No need to purchase more equipment (extra thermometers) and those would need calibrating too. Stick with what you have and dial it in through observation of a few hatches. Make sure your due date is correct; the day of week you set eggs is same day of week they will hatch three weeks later.

I don't know if the Little Giant's thermostat control is any better on new models. I had an old model and it was a pain for small adjustments. To make it easier cut small hole in milk cap same size of thermostat knob and glue it in place. That larger circumference makes for easy fine adjustments of temp.

 

[wingedshade]

Here is what I posted on the Hatch-a-long:

4/15 hatched, one zipped but then stopped. It's still alive, but I think the membrane may have hardened on the exposed areas. I'm planning a rescue in a bit.

Here are pictures of the other 10 eggs. If I could get input on what may have gone wrong or if there is any hope left for any of them that would be much appreciated!

Bought from a seller on eBay, eggs shipped from Oklahoma Monday, arrived in Alaska Thursday. Set Friday April 22 due May 13. The eggs were set in a Little Giant 9300 Styrofoam incubator, it had a fan. I had my brother make an egg turner, but at one point the control arm hopped off of it's rail and dumped some of the eggs out and later it quit turning for a few days. The temperatures fluctuated badly going between 98f to 102f on the plus side I don't think it stayed at the extremes for a long time. The humidity went from down to 16% and up to about 60% I tried to keep it around 45%.

All of these pictures were taken today, day 23.

1. White. That is a huge air cell!




2. Tan/light brown. This one for sure has nothing in it, into the trash it went.

3. Dark brown. This one looks promising


4. Light brown

5. Olive. I can't see jack sh*t! I couldn't when I first got them either.

6. White. The veins and blood spots do not look good



7. Brown. Another one I threw out.


8. Olive. I couldn't really see anything.

9. Olive. I can actually see the air cell in this one!

10. Dark brown

 

[linz44]

It's hard to tell the air cell to egg ratio but the air cells look huge! I remember reading something about the air cells developing too large or not enough because of humidity. But I can't see where the egg ends in the hand but it seems the air cells are too big. Anyone else have an idea?

 

[junebuggena]

I've had air cells like in eggs that didn't hatch. What happened was that the chick, internally pipped into the air cell, but couldn't get into position for external pip (for one reason or another) and died.