Really poor hatch rates, help!

[Sdod]

My husband and I have been trying to hatch out some chicks and we have had terrible hatch rates. On our first batch we had a homemade incubator with no egg Turner and out of 9 eggs we got six chicks. One egg was not fertile. We were pretty happy with that, upgraded to "Real" incubator with egg turners, fan, alarms, it is plastic so we put some insulation around it. We had three temp gages going and kept close eye on it. Air pockets looked good and eight out of nine eggs looked good going into lock down. We only got three to hatch. The others did not even pip but when we opened the eggs they looked good and were fully formed, rotated correctly. Just dead. I feel terrible, I would love more ideas so I stop killing these poor chicks.

 

[Sasha-chickens]

My husband and I have been trying to hatch out some chicks and we have had terrible hatch rates. On our first batch we had a homemade incubator with no egg Turner and out of 9 eggs we got six chicks. One egg was not fertile. We were pretty happy with that, upgraded to "Real" incubator with egg turners, fan, alarms, it is plastic so we put some insulation around it. We had three temp gages going and kept close eye on it. Air pockets looked good and eight out of nine eggs looked good going into lock down. We only got three to hatch. The others did not even pip but when we opened the eggs they looked good and were fully formed, rotated correctly. Just dead. I feel terrible, I would love more ideas so I stop killing these poor chicks.

what’s the humidity? what side of the egg are you putting in the incubator, top or bottom?

 

[Sdod]

The humidity was right around 29-30% until lock down when we boosted it to 65-70%. We are northeast and fairly high humidity. Eggs go in top down. We did spray with hydrogen peroxide because we saw on YouTube it would help.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I've never heard of using hydrogen peroxide on eggs. Some unfortunately live up to day 21-22 and just don't hatch

 

[JaeG]

Make sure you open all vents/remove all plugs (depending on your incubator) for lockdown. Eggs need a lot of fresh air as they near hatch time and they can suffocate without sufficient air flow. It's an easy thing to forget to do.

You can do an internet search for Incubation Troubleshooting and there are quite a few pages you can read through, matching what you saw with your eggs with the relevant explanations too.

for next time.

 

[Sdod]

Make sure you open all vents/remove all plugs (depending on your incubator) for lockdown. Eggs need a lot of fresh air as they near hatch time and they can suffocate without sufficient air flow. It's an easy thing to forget to do.

You can do an internet search for Incubation Troubleshooting and there are quite a few pages you can read through, matching what you saw with your eggs with the relevant explanations too.

for next time.

How much venting do you suggest? Here is the top of my incubator. There are two small vents (center front and back), and we added the holes in the four corners. Would you add more? Thank you so much for your advice!

 

[JaeG]

How much venting do you suggest? Here is the top of my incubator. There are two small vents (center front and back), and we added the holes in the four corners. Would you add more? Thank you so much for your advice!

That should be a good amount of ventilation - it's just something people forget to open, or they close the vents in an effort to raise the humidity.