What is wrong??

[New2chickensnky]

Hello all. First I want to thank each and every one of you all that has helped us become better chicken hatchers. With out you all we would proabally not have hatched as many as we have so far.

Now on to more questions for my professionals out there.

On the last few hatches, we have had several start piping on day 18 and hatch on day 19. They are all fine after the fact and seem to adjust very well, some are HUGE now at 3 months old and I think we only lost 2 or so that had hatched early. Is this normal? We barely made it home from a camping trip that we scheduled around the hatching last month , I never even thought about it because we came home on day 18 early and went to check on the eggs and there was 6 piping and ready.

Next, we have noticed in the last few hatches, we have had several , the most being 16 eggs, that were fully developed and all the last day we candled, and they never did hatch, when we finally gave up hope on day 25 or so , I cracked them open to make sure I was seeing babies or not and sure enough , they were fully developed ,looked just like the ones that had hatched but did not hatch. They had to have died late but what do you all think could have caused this? We have more ready to hatch on Monday , and I am worried we will go through this again, I hate loosing the babies and was wondering if we were doing anything wrong. So far , we have had decent hatches , with the last one being the worst since we have gotten it all figuared out\\. We do clean the bator , the turner and all when we get finished with the hatch , and always let it dry out and run for a few days before we put more eggs in. Someone told my hubby the other night to take the eggs and when we put them in the carton to save them, to turn them upside down on the first day , when we add the next day , flip them the other way , and so on and so forth. Has anyone heard of this? He said when he started doing this , he was getting at least a 90% hatch rate and that an older lady whom he gets his hatching eggs from told him this.

Any and all advice would be great. While we have had some great hatches since starting , this few days early and the fully developed ones not hatching has me puzzled. If the breed is important , these are RIR and Red Stars


Thanks... Mother to 5 kids , a wonderful hubby, and the pet to 65 chickens

 

[shelleyd2008]

The early hatching could be a temp problem, or a humidity problem, I believe the dead in shell chicks could be from the same causes, although there are different reasons besides these. My chicks usually do hatch early, but they are bantams, and I have been told that bantams only go for 19 days. Did you try the search button? I am sure there are a lot of posts on this particular subject.

 

[deerman]

When store eggs are in the carton, place the carton at 45 degree and turn 180 degree each day. Store eggs small end down. Reason to keep the air cell at the large end.

 

[hinkjc]

In my experience, my bantams and standards both hatch on or around day 21. If your thermometer and hygrometer are reading accurately, this should be the case. I would guess something is off with the thermometer/hygrometer. It will either need to be calibrated or verified with another.

Jody