What am I doing wrong?

[LisabethBrooke]

I have a Little Giant still air Styrofoam incubator. I have it set up in an old camper - where I also have my brooding pens. I put my own eggs in it. They should all be fertile because I have too many roosters - my poor hens. I gather and clean the eggs. I fill the incubator full of eggs on a single layer. Put the incubator to 100 degrees F. Turn them a few times a day - I do not keep track of how often I turn them. I try to keep it about three times a day, some days it will be more, others less. (this could be one problem). The humidity is about 55-60 during incubation and then spikes to about 80 while they're hatching. I assume this is normal, because they hatch and dry out before I sneak my hand in and pull them out to be transferred into the brooding pen. I move them as soon as I've noticed that they have fluffed up and they seem to be doing good and needing to move around more. Once moved into the brooding pen, they do great. But not all of the eggs hatch. I have incredibly low hatching rate. This last time I had about 50 eggs in the incubator and only had 8 of the chicks fully hatch. Some of them start to pip and then give up and die. If I catch these guys early and help crack them out of the shell they do just fine. Others pip and zip and flop out all on their own. But after all the chicks have hatched, and the incubator is still full of eggs and its been several days past the due date I call it. I cracked them open this time to see what was going on inside the shell. Note I didn't candle the eggs this round, I will have to do that this next time. About 15 of the eggs weren't fertile - or never amounted to anything. Just regular egg - white and yolk - on the inside. The others developed into mostly an entire chick - but gave out sometime in the process of fully absorbing the yolk and there was still a lot of extra egg goo on the inside of the eggs with the mostly developed chicks in them. Why did these eggs abort? Do I have something set up wrong toward the end when they're finishing the cycle?

 

[cmom]

I think your humidity is too high during incubation. I have a better hatch rate when I keep my humidity around 30% during incubation and raise it the last 3 days during lockdown.

 

[cmom]

The eggs need to loose some moisture during incubation.

 

[LisabethBrooke]

Oh my goodness look at those incubators! I would love that. They're so expensive. How do I decrease humidity? I didn't put any water in the trough this time because our outside humidity has been between 40-60%. Do I crack the incubator so some moisture can escape?

 

[cmom]

Do you have the plugs in on the top? If so, take one or both out. This will affect both the temperature and humidity. I have punched some smalls holes in mine to help. You can always put tape over the holes.

 

[mdees88]

Outside humidity is not what the humidity will be inside the incubator. You need to verify your temp and humidity (mainly humidity) with another thermometer/hygrometer. You cannot trust the ones built into the incubators. I've had very good luck with these.....
https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-TP...1527549720&sr=8-3&keywords=thermopro+humidity

 

[cmom]

I turned on my cabinet incubator today to get ready to put egg in tomorrow. I know the humidity will change when I put the eggs in. We have had so much rain this month that I had to almost completely close the vents to get the humidity down.

 

[cmom]

My styrofoam incubators are quite old. I have had them for years. Now I incubate in the cabinet and hatch in the styrofoam incubators/hatchers.

 

[LisabethBrooke]

Mine has two plugs on the top of the lid. I will try to vent it with those this time around. Hopefully my hatch rate will be significantly higher. And I will make sure to buy an extra thermometer and hygrometer. Thank You!

 

[ronott1]

I have a Little Giant still air Styrofoam incubator. I have it set up in an old camper - where I also have my brooding pens. I put my own eggs in it. They should all be fertile because I have too many roosters - my poor hens. I gather and clean the eggs. I fill the incubator full of eggs on a single layer. Put the incubator to 100 degrees F. Turn them a few times a day - I do not keep track of how often I turn them. I try to keep it about three times a day, some days it will be more, others less. (this could be one problem). The humidity is about 55-60 during incubation and then spikes to about 80 while they're hatching. I assume this is normal, because they hatch and dry out before I sneak my hand in and pull them out to be transferred into the brooding pen. I move them as soon as I've noticed that they have fluffed up and they seem to be doing good and needing to move around more. Once moved into the brooding pen, they do great. But not all of the eggs hatch. I have incredibly low hatching rate. This last time I had about 50 eggs in the incubator and only had 8 of the chicks fully hatch. Some of them start to pip and then give up and die. If I catch these guys early and help crack them out of the shell they do just fine. Others pip and zip and flop out all on their own. But after all the chicks have hatched, and the incubator is still full of eggs and its been several days past the due date I call it. I cracked them open this time to see what was going on inside the shell. Note I didn't candle the eggs this round, I will have to do that this next time. About 15 of the eggs weren't fertile - or never amounted to anything. Just regular egg - white and yolk - on the inside. The others developed into mostly an entire chick - but gave out sometime in the process of fully absorbing the yolk and there was still a lot of extra egg goo on the inside of the eggs with the mostly developed chicks in them. Why did these eggs abort? Do I have something set up wrong toward the end when they're finishing the cycle?

Still air is not set at 100f. The top of the egg is 101 and the bottom is 99. You need to use a calibrated thermometer to check this.

My guess based on the symptoms is that the temperature was too low but a degree or so.

Humidity would not cause you symptoms but incubating at 30 to 45% is a better way to go