What am I doing wrong???

[Inthegame]

Okay what am I doing wrong? At best we are getting a 50% hatch rate. We just finished our last hatch and this is really getting to me. We had the incubator set at 100 degrees and humidity at 40%. On day 18 we moved them into the hatcher. Temp was rock solid at 100 degrees and we had the humidity at 60-65%. There was a period of 5 or 6 hours that the temps went crazy and reached 105 but i finally got it set and it stayed right on the money. Closed the door and left it closed. On the morning of day 22 we opened the door and took out everything that was hatched and dry. We would have waited longer but had to leave town for a funeral. I had my daughter open the hatcher back up on day 23 and take out the rest of the live chicks and close it back up. We got back to town last night and cleaned out the hatch [day 24]. We ended up with about 50% making it. I could understand if they were shrink wrapped what with opening the hatcher but we had a lot of eggs that never hatched at all. We broke open the eggs and found fully formed chicks that were dead!. Did the crazy temps kill the chicks or now I.m thinking that the humidity may have been to high and they drowned. What do you think?

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Well I first thought fertility until you mentioned the fully formed dead chicks. It could have been the temp spike. When you move from incubation to hatching you should probably have your temp in the hatcher set a few degrees lower. When chicks get that close they are making their own body heat and it can raise the temp and cause spikes in the temp of the hatcher. I had the same issues a while back and got low hatches until I figured it out that that was causing temp spikes. Hope that helps!

 

[Inthegame]

I do appreciate the advise. At this point I am about ready to try any and everything. I will try lowering the temp in the hatcher a little just before we put the eggs in. If I remember right it was the morning of day 2 when everything went crazy for awhile. I never thought about the eggs themselves raising the temps. Thanks