What am I doing wrong?

[hey102974]

I am new to incubating/hatching eggs, and thought I was prepared. I got a little giant incubator,got it set up and steady, and ordered eggs off of eBay. The first round of eggs I had multiple issues with both temperature fluctuations and humidity issues. 2 weeks in I got a hovabator incubator (still air like the little giant), and it was much better at holding temp and humidity, so I moved the eggs into that one. I had both quail and chicken eggs. 2 quail hatched, though one died 3 days later. 2 chicks hatched (one with curly toes which I treated as per the advice on this site). And when I did eggtopsies,I had 18 fully formed chicks that never hatched. 4 were shrink wrapped, one was upside down, and one was sideways...other than that, the others looked perfect, three had even pipped internally but never came out.

So I figured it was the incubator switching and that I opened the incubator a few times during lock down to check the eggs. So I got more eggs, ensured that the temperature and humidity stayed near 100 and 50% respectively through the whole incubating, and turned 3-5 times a day (temp range was between 97 low and 102.7 high, though stayed around 100 most of the time, and humidity sometiems dipped to 35 or was up to 60, but most of the time was between 45-50%). I made sure that the humidity was up to 70% and put the eggs on lockdown after a final candling at 18 days (15 days for the quail). 16 quail and 10 chicken eggs looked good at the final candling.

Today, 3 days past expected hatching, I did the artificial pipping in the air cells to check why they didn't hatch, and all of them were dead. 14 perfectly formed quail babies, and 8 perfect little Rhode Island Reds...all dead in their shells. I am so confused. I have a dozen duck eggs in my other incubator and a dozen chicken eggs, and now I am afraid that they will not make it. THey are half way to hatch time for the chickens and a third of the way for the ducks. Ten of the ducks are very active in their shells, and the chickens I am not sure (the eggs had a rough shipping from VERY hot new mexico, and one exploded the other day in the incubator, so i am not sure how many of those are viable, though there seems to be some development going on). I am just terrified that I am doing something wrong at the end of incubation that is making the little guys not hatch. Having lost so many babies in my last 2 rounds right at the end, I am really needing some advice as to how to keep these guys alive. What am I doing wrong?

 

[ozexpat]

I am new to incubating/hatching eggs, and thought I was prepared. I got a little giant incubator,got it set up and steady, and ordered eggs off of eBay. The first round of eggs I had multiple issues with both temperature fluctuations and humidity issues. 2 weeks in I got a hovabator incubator (still air like the little giant), and it was much better at holding temp and humidity, so I moved the eggs into that one. I had both quail and chicken eggs. 2 quail hatched, though one died 3 days later. 2 chicks hatched (one with curly toes which I treated as per the advice on this site). And when I did eggtopsies,I had 18 fully formed chicks that never hatched. 4 were shrink wrapped, one was upside down, and one was sideways...other than that, the others looked perfect, three had even pipped internally but never came out.

So I figured it was the incubator switching and that I opened the incubator a few times during lock down to check the eggs. So I got more eggs, ensured that the temperature and humidity stayed near 100 and 50% respectively through the whole incubating, and turned 3-5 times a day (temp range was between 97 low and 102.7 high, though stayed around 100 most of the time, and humidity sometiems dipped to 35 or was up to 60, but most of the time was between 45-50%). I made sure that the humidity was up to 70% and put the eggs on lockdown after a final candling at 18 days (15 days for the quail). 16 quail and 10 chicken eggs looked good at the final candling.

Today, 3 days past expected hatching, I did the artificial pipping in the air cells to check why they didn't hatch, and all of them were dead. 14 perfectly formed quail babies, and 8 perfect little Rhode Island Reds...all dead in their shells. I am so confused. I have a dozen duck eggs in my other incubator and a dozen chicken eggs, and now I am afraid that they will not make it. THey are half way to hatch time for the chickens and a third of the way for the ducks. Ten of the ducks are very active in their shells, and the chickens I am not sure (the eggs had a rough shipping from VERY hot new mexico, and one exploded the other day in the incubator, so i am not sure how many of those are viable, though there seems to be some development going on). I am just terrified that I am doing something wrong at the end of incubation that is making the little guys not hatch. Having lost so many babies in my last 2 rounds right at the end, I am really needing some advice as to how to keep these guys alive. What am I doing wrong?

there are a couple of things i would suggest

1 try dry incubation. Despite many suggestions that 50% is ideal, it seems too high for 90% of people here. do not add water to the incubator based on humidity. do it based on egg weight loss. most of us do not add water at all till lock down. get s cheap gram scale off amazon for $10. Weigh eggs with candling. Sally sunshines hatching 101 in my signature will help explain in more detail

2 in a still air bator you need a temp of 102 on the top of the eggs. I prefer a computer fan added with the airflow pointing up and then run at 100.

 

[seventreesfarm]

I'm also using a little giant bator, only with fan & turner.
I had 2 good hatches with shipped eggs, then a really crappy one.
Now I have 1 chick out of 18 shipped eggs, and another one partially out of the shell, but not making progress.
Not sure what's different, but it's a learning curve.

I tried one batch weighing eggs and shooting for 12% air cell loss by weight. I adjusted humidity up pretty high (50-55%) to compensate for too much weight loss, but had the worst hatch ever.

My previous successful hatches were closer to a dry hatch (25-40%) so in future hatches I'm going to track weight loss but do the lower humidity.