What went terribly wrong???

[Bowhunter76]

Hi All, I'm new here... I have been scouring the internet trying to figure out what went wrong and I am truly having a hard time figuring this out.

About me...

As a kid we raised ducks and rabbits and were heavily into gardening. I learned to raise, slaughter and butcher at a young age.

For the past ten years I have raised chickens. Both for eggs and meat. I have raised a mix of breeds and had broody hens do the incubating in the past. That was mainly so the new ones would be accepted into the flock.

More recently, last year I decided to retire my hens and beautiful HUGE rooster to a farm and start fresh.. So I Poured a cement floor in the coop and fixed everything up and did my research on what birds to buy to raise a sustainable flock and not buy birds for eggs or meat anymore except to introduce new genes into the flock.

So I went ahead and purchased 17 new chicks online, 11 cuckoo marans 10 hens and a rooster and 6 gold laced wyandottes.

This year instead of buying chicks I spent that money on an incubator I got the little giant from tractor supply since I already had the automatic egg turner for that model.

I read the instructions and did my research then I took 34 eggs and put them in. I candled at day 8 and removed some yolkers, then again at day 15 and removed about 5 more either yolkers or quitters. at day 18 I took the egg turner out and added a wet cloth even though the water troughs were full. Humidity seemed to be an issue, I NEVER got the humidity up to 65% Highest was 50%.

At day 22 one chick hatched, at day 23 a second.

Yesterday sadly was day 30 and I took each egg and candled it to make sure there was in fact no movement in the eggs before my autopsy..

As I cracked them open I was upset to find apparently fully developed chicks in almost every egg and not one had any life to them.

What the.......

Was it humidity?

I thought maybe it could have been the other chicks that hatched bumping the eggs around too much?

one or two appeared to not have absorbed the yolk sack completely but who knows when it died so maybe it died during that process.

I want to try a second batch but I am disgusted..

Last night I took everything apart and cleaned it. Added water to the troughs in the incubator and started it up just to test again for humidity and it is still 50%

Any ideas???

 

[oakhollow]

People with much more knowledge will be responding in a bit, but you need to get a separate thermometer/hygrometer and calibrate it. The readout on your incubator is probably off, and causing problems. It sounds like temp is reading higher and humidity lower than actuality.

 

[feedman77]

What lg model do you have?

If you kept water in the bottom the whole time I would say your humidity was too high and the chicks pipped and drowned.

I have a 9300 and a 10300. On both the humidity indicator is way off. One reads 55 with the bator dry or full of water.

On the temperature side I had to set them at 103 to get close to the desired hatching temp on the eggs. I checked temps with a brinsea spot check.

What seem to have given the best hatch rates for me was to shoot for 25 to 35 percent humidity during incubation. Then raise 65 to 70 for hatch.

 

[EaeMre]

I just went through the same thing that Bowhunter described. We had a 50% success rate. After I determined that the eggs were all dead, opened them up. Most of the yolk sacs were 90% absorbed. So they died close to hatching.
I am setting up for a second batch and can not figure out what killed them. My humidity and temp were on the mark, 101.7-102. on temp and 68% humidity from day 18 on. I have two gauges for double checking.

To quote Bowhunter "WT..."?

Help another chicken lover...

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Ok, first off, as stated the digital LG's display is notorious for being wrong. You need an independent thermometer (or two) and hygrometer and make sure they are checked/accurate. The LG 9300 often is at LEAST 3 degrees off. The fact that the hatch started late points to the fact the temps were low to start with. Still air needs to be around 101.5. (Forced 99.5) Once you have your temps accurate and stable- you're half way there.

The next big hurdle is humidity. If you follow the incubator instructions, chances are you are going to drown your eggs. Unless you live in a high elevation (which is a headache itself for hatching,) a low humidity is preferrable to the recommended 50%. The best thing you can do is run low humidity incubation and monitor your air cells to know how and when to adjust. High humidity in the styro bators usually ends with well formed chicks making it to hatch and never hatching. I use 30% normally for the first 17 days and 75% for hatch.

I recommend taking a look at this for humidity: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity
And this for overall hatching: http://hatching411.weebly.com/

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Hi All, I'm new here... I have been scouring the internet trying to figure out what went wrong and I am truly having a hard time figuring this out.

About me...

As a kid we raised ducks and rabbits and were heavily into gardening. I learned to raise, slaughter and butcher at a young age.

For the past ten years I have raised chickens. Both for eggs and meat. I have raised a mix of breeds and had broody hens do the incubating in the past. That was mainly so the new ones would be accepted into the flock.

More recently, last year I decided to retire my hens and beautiful HUGE rooster to a farm and start fresh.. So I Poured a cement floor in the coop and fixed everything up and did my research on what birds to buy to raise a sustainable flock and not buy birds for eggs or meat anymore except to introduce new genes into the flock.

So I went ahead and purchased 17 new chicks online, 11 cuckoo marans 10 hens and a rooster and 6 gold laced wyandottes.

This year instead of buying chicks I spent that money on an incubator I got the little giant from tractor supply since I already had the automatic egg turner for that model.

I read the instructions and did my research then I took 34 eggs and put them in. I candled at day 8 and removed some yolkers, then again at day 15 and removed about 5 more either yolkers or quitters. at day 18 I took the egg turner out and added a wet cloth even though the water troughs were full. Humidity seemed to be an issue, I NEVER got the humidity up to 65% Highest was 50%.

At day 22 one chick hatched, at day 23 a second.

Yesterday sadly was day 30 and I took each egg and candled it to make sure there was in fact no movement in the eggs before my autopsy..

As I cracked them open I was upset to find apparently fully developed chicks in almost every egg and not one had any life to them.

What the.......

Was it humidity?

I thought maybe it could have been the other chicks that hatched bumping the eggs around too much?

one or two appeared to not have absorbed the yolk sack completely but who knows when it died so maybe it died during that process.

I want to try a second batch but I am disgusted..

Last night I took everything apart and cleaned it. Added water to the troughs in the incubator and started it up just to test again for humidity and it is still 50%

Any ideas???

And

 

[Bowhunter76]

Thanks for all the replies...

I will double check the temp with a secondary thermometer when I get home but I do not have any way to double check the humidity..

 

[Bowhunter76]

So..... I think i found my problem. Wow stupid mistake... Ok so i got home, temp ok, humidity 41%.

Then i realized i had the two red plugs in the top. I pulled them and humidity went up to 55%

 

[Bowhunter76]

yeah I can see how this is really screwy I took all water out and it still says 50% with the red caps out.

I bet I had way too much humidity and they drowned.

 

[feedman77]

Hope if you give it another go your next hatch turns out better.

Incubating is frustrating and fulfilling.

Good luck