What did I do wrong? Bad hatch rates

[ladybrasa]

Are you experimenting? That's a lot of casualties happening.

Not intentionally!! Yeah I know it was a lot

Crossing my fingers that my 1 is still going strong!

 

[Tonyroo]

From what I can tell the 360NR needs to be in a stable atmospheric room or in a closet. Due to its thin plastic construction, it's prone to being influenced by the surrounding air and humidity around it.

For shipped and my own flock eggs, I place them in the incubator on it's side and not turn them for 2 days. On the 3rd day, I hand turn them 3 times a day, till day 17. This period I keep the humidity between 30 to 45%. I gradually increase the humidity during the weeks.

On day 18, I'll give one more turn then it set for lockdown. My lockdown humidity stay at 66 to 70% humidity.

On hatch day, when a chick pops out, I re-adjust my humidity back down to 70% and hold it there till the chick can be removed.

I repeat this for every chicks to pop out.

This method has been proven to give me the best hatch rate. My last hatch of SFH eggs was 10/10.

But for shipped eggs, the worst is infertile eggs, not much can be done with that.

Just thought I would share my experiences incubating eggs.

 

[Weeg]

For shipped and my own flock eggs, I place them in the incubator on it's side and not turn them for 2 days.

Thats what was suggested for me with my shipped eggs, but I placed them in egg cartons air cell up, and didn't turn for 3 days. After that, I place them on their sides and allow the 360 to manually turn them until lockdown. Lockdown temp is 65%-70, and was on the higher side last time.

 

[Weeg]

From what I can tell the 360NR needs to be in a stable atmospheric room or in a closet. Due to its thin plastic construction, it's prone to being influenced by the surrounding air and humidity around it.

For shipped and my own flock eggs, I place them in the incubator on it's side and not turn them for 2 days. On the 3rd day, I hand turn them 3 times a day, till day 17. This period I keep the humidity between 30 to 45%. I gradually increase the humidity during the weeks.

On day 18, I'll give one more turn then it set for lockdown. My lockdown humidity stay at 66 to 70% humidity.

On hatch day, when a chick pops out, I re-adjust my humidity back down to 70% and hold it there till the chick can be removed.

I repeat this for every chicks to pop out.

This method has been proven to give me the best hatch rate. My last hatch of SFH eggs was 10/10.

But for shipped eggs, the worst is infertile eggs, not much can be done with that.

Just thought I would share my experiences incubating eggs.

Thank you so much for the tips! I'll have to use some of the other tips you suggested, like gradually increasing the humidity, etc. I appreciate your advice and will have to try some of your techniques in the future. Thanks again!

 

[Weeg]

I guess I should probably update this thread.
My last egg made it to hatch, and today is a beautiful 8 week old cockerel. His 3 other siblings are doing good as well. Sunny initially hatched 5, but one failed to thrive after hatching with building eyes, and the other I found wet and passed after moving Sunny to her new coop. Not entirely sure how that happened.
I'm still trying to figure out what the heck is going on!
I want to do a breeding project nee Spring, and to do that I need better hatch rates. I'm getting my own 360, so maybe that will make a difference? I'm also going to change teh location. Were it was located was right next to a window, and right in front of our drier if that would cause any problems. I'm going to try to find a quite, closet were it won't get messed with, but we'll see how it goes.
Also read in the incubation mistakes thread that you should use distilled water? Not sure how big of a difference it really makes, but since my last two hatched quit on day 6, I need to change something.
Any other suggestions are welcome, I really need some ideas because this can't keep happening. Thanks everyone!

 

[Tonyroo]

I use distilled water cause I know it's chemical free for humidity in the incubator. The best location for the incubator is in a cabinet or in a closet with a shelf. The reason is the atmospheric air is really stable and slightly cooler.

I did consider buying a broody type hen, but after much thought I want hatching to occur on my schedule and not hers. I also keep my hands sanitized when I have to handle the eggs for candling. And with that I only candle on day 6, day 12, and lockdown. This method has worked for me well.

I hope you were able to find useful tips from others so you can adapt it to your own for a better success with hatching.

 

[Weeg]

Thank you! Everything you mentioned are things I didn’t do in my last hatches.
I’ll keep this thread updated, thanks @Tonyroo!

 

[Cryss]

I had 14 eggs. 2 got crushed early on. Another One started to smell and another one was definitely infertile. It’s contents sloshed from end to end. That left 10. I candled at week one and again during week 2. I videoed and asked for help identifying quitters. There were 3 that were considered to definitely be dead. Everyone was very consoling and helpful showing me how to identify signs of their death. I decided I was going to leave those 3 in place. I still don’t know why I decided that. It was my first time hatching! Well! Surprise surprise surprise!!! All three “dead” eggs hatched! One other egg died in the shell. I have 9 chicks that are now coming into 14 weeks old. 5 cockerels, 4 pullets.
My point is that maybe you gave up on eggs too soon.
Btw my chickens were broody-hatched. A couple of times I found an egg outside the clutch area an wondered if mama knew something. It was not always the same egg. I put it back. They also hatched.

 

[Dottie the Chicken]

I know Cochin eggs are fairly easy to candle but my eggs are dark and I never remove any unless they leak or stink.
With shipped eggs, what you can't control is how long they were stored or how long it took in the mail. You also can't control health of the breeders or breeder nutrition.
I always boost breeder nutrition a couple weeks before collecting for incubation.

What do you do to boost breeder nutrition?

 

[Weeg]

I had 14 eggs. 2 got crushed early on. Another One started to smell and another one was definitely infertile. It’s contents sloshed from end to end. That left 10. I candled at week one and again during week 2. I videoed and asked for help identifying quitters. There were 3 that were considered to definitely be dead. Everyone was very consoling and helpful showing me how to identify signs of their death. I decided I was going to leave those 3 in place. I still don’t know why I decided that. It was my first time hatching! Well! Surprise surprise surprise!!! All three “dead” eggs hatched! One other egg died in the shell. I have 9 chicks that are now coming into 14 weeks old. 5 cockerels, 4 pullets.
My point is that maybe you gave up on eggs too soon.
Btw my chickens were broody-hatched. A couple of times I found an egg outside the clutch area an wondered if mama knew something. It was not always the same egg. I put it back. They also hatched.

Huh, interesting. I always leave them in until day 12 for this reason, and then only toss if I still see no signs of development, or blood rings.
Thanks for sharing, this is such an interesting story. I'll have to keep it in mind for questionable eggs that I have in the future.