I've been hatching now since January. I have a foam incubator with an egg turner. At the beginning I was getting a 20% hatch rate. After receiving some advice and doing some research my hatch rate plummeted to 0%. So I have went back to my original method and plan to tweak it here and there until my hatching % increases.
On the last hatch I candled on day 18 and had 30 good looking eggs. Out of the 30, 9 hatched. Out of those 9, 5 had to have assistance. They had pipped and 24 hrs later, they had made no progress but was chirppy. Upon assisting the chicks I noticed that the membrane was very tough. When trying to break the egg open, often I would break away the shell and the membrane was still intact. I'm thinking that the membrane is getting to tough for the chicks to pip through. Is that possible and if so how can I remedy that?
This last hatch the humidity remained between 65% and 75% until lockdown. I left one plug out the whole time. The one in the middle. On day 18 I added more water to take the humidity up to 80%. While watching a video on a hatchery I noticed that when they were moved to the hatch location the humidity was 85%. I candled at day 7 and day 18. After day 18 we do not open it until after the hatch unless we feel we need to help. I started with 42 eggs. I candle before we incubate for porousness and any cracks. We gathered eggs for 5 days. The eggs were kept on the kitchen counter. Average temp was 70 degrees and humidity was above 60%.
Any advise?
On the last hatch I candled on day 18 and had 30 good looking eggs. Out of the 30, 9 hatched. Out of those 9, 5 had to have assistance. They had pipped and 24 hrs later, they had made no progress but was chirppy. Upon assisting the chicks I noticed that the membrane was very tough. When trying to break the egg open, often I would break away the shell and the membrane was still intact. I'm thinking that the membrane is getting to tough for the chicks to pip through. Is that possible and if so how can I remedy that?
This last hatch the humidity remained between 65% and 75% until lockdown. I left one plug out the whole time. The one in the middle. On day 18 I added more water to take the humidity up to 80%. While watching a video on a hatchery I noticed that when they were moved to the hatch location the humidity was 85%. I candled at day 7 and day 18. After day 18 we do not open it until after the hatch unless we feel we need to help. I started with 42 eggs. I candle before we incubate for porousness and any cracks. We gathered eggs for 5 days. The eggs were kept on the kitchen counter. Average temp was 70 degrees and humidity was above 60%.
Any advise?
