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I can't speak to Pekins, but I can tell you that I have had a viable and vigorous baby Call hatch out all by itself on late day 22/early day 23. So it is possible. I've also had them hatch as late as day 29, though I am seeing the early babies seem to do better than late ones once they are out. Late ones take longer before they are ready to go to the brooder.
I agree with what people are saying about this air cell being too large/the egg being too dehydrated at this point. I'd up the humidity and absolutely quit spraying, *BUT*, with that said, I would also be checking all the other eggs with the candler...there may be eggs that do need spraying still. Have had that happen too. Working with several different varieties and families of Calls, not all my eggs run on the same schedule of drying down even though they are all set the same day. I personally am not afraid to run my candler over the eggs every day if need be, because I am hand-turning three times a day anyway. But I have a pretty good candler and I can do it quickly with a minimum of fussing around.
Everybody's results are going to vary depending upon where you are, your elevation, your humidity, storms, etc...all sorts of things can affect a hatch. Those numbers are more guidelines rather than hard and fast rules. You have to find your groove for your area and then figure out how to adjust for that, because as the seasons change, so can the "ground rules" you work out for yourself. Even a single day can make drastic changes, and not all machines perform the same either.
Right now my humidity is 79%-80% - I haven't been able to get it higher than 80% though.
I never go higher than 74% myself, if I can help it...I do sometimes have sticky babies depending on how long they take to get out, but that doesn't bother me so much because I know how to deal with it. Being as that you are on a learning curve here, you might want to stick with the higher humidity, but also bear in mind that any condensation forming inside the incubator/hatcher can also form inside the eggs and drown the babies if it goes too high. I personally let seeing that condensation be my guide on when to stop, and even if my hygrometer decides to quit I know my hatcher well enough by now to know where my air vents should be set and how much condensation we can stand to have. If I can't see inside the hatcher window at all, that's a no-go for us here because if I have a duckling in trouble I'm going to help. I'd rather have to wipe stickies than have a duckling almost completely rimmed and then get stuck and die because I didn't catch it.
