What went wrong? Warning (Eggtopsy Pictures)

[melodym78]

After just wasting a boat load of money myself on eggs that "almost" made it....I feel your pain. I want to stop hatching but I also want so badly to "get it right" . My little broody cochin hen just hatched out 11 eggs earllier this fall. The eggs were moved 3 times and still all hatched...go figure! I guess nothing beats good ole Mother Nature!

 

[namastemama]

You know I never had luck with my hovabator. It sucked. I got a Brinsea and my last hatch experienced a 20 hour power outage with Trader Joe's eggs and I still managed to hatch 3 chicks! I can't say how awesome of a bator the Brinsea is. Plus they are on sale right now. can't beat that!

 

[ChirpNEggBaby]

What caught my attention is the 60% humidity...waaay too high...bleach and sunshine the poo outta your incubator. Then get some coturnix quail eggs as test eggs. (cheap and hatch in about 17 days. Put thermomter ON TOP of eggs-101 is a happy place for a still air. Get your humidity to about 45% no higher and you should have much better results. Tho if it was me (and Ive been there) Id be selling that bator and buying the cabinet bator...as if you are spending that much on eggs you need a proper place to put them. IMHO

 

[BantamBud]

Thanks everyone!The incubator is a still air.I am planning to getting myself some valley quail chicks soon Marry Christmas to me

. I am hoping to get some girl chicks and hatch some eggs from them.I was so upset the little ducks were just so perfect to! I spent 50 on the little 5 show duck eggs not including shipping!I am hoeing for a better hatch with the valley quail any suggestions on cleaning and resetting the incubator?

P.S If i do get some girls i will share some free eggs with you guys to give back to the BYC community for the help!

 

[CarolinaChickenKeeper]

Agreed. 60% is too high. They prob drowned. Styrofoam bators are ok, as some are better. U should monitor the temp in various locations: top, bottom, center, outer edge. It takes a while to get the temp right. I often put water in two ziplock bags and a thermometer in between the two. Supposed to mimic the internal egg temp. The temp at the Egg top should not get above 102.

As u've found out, ALWAYS do not invest in expensive eggs, till u perfect your hatching technique. Research dry incubating. Works for me, but I prob depends on where u live. Here my humidity is 20-30 without adding water. I've done the buying expensive eggs and failing too, but I've also had good hatches. Trial and error, I'd say

 

[ILOVELEGHORNS]

Quote:
Exactly correct. I have a still air, high hatchability, run it at 101.3, dry incubate until the 18th day, and hand turn more than 3X per day..

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
Yup. Hand turning in cheap still air bators can give great results, IF you've taken the time to read up on incubation and humidity and taken the time to try and understand WHY you should and shouldn't be doing various things with your eggs. If you haven't taken the time to learn a bit about hatching, you could spend all the money in the world on a big automatic fancypants bator and still have rubbish results. Bad workmen blame their tools and I think a lot of people with poor hatching results can be too quick to blame their bators, when the problem is more just that they haven't taken the time to learn how their bator works...

 

[Kimmyh51]

I dont use any humidifier with my ducks in the incubator. I set it a bit lower than ideal as they do fine a little lower (last time I had them on 35.9 C).
And i sprinkle tap water on with my hands once a day and thats it. Never had any ducklings fail to hatch, except for other reasos I knew werent related to the incubator.

i also don't lock down and chevk asoften as I feel i need to during hatch.

after all mummy duck doesn't have a humidifier and check percentages, neither does she 'lock down' during hatch like people do with incubators.

ive also had ducks incubate their own eggs during a hot dry summer and a couple who refused to swim the entire time, so the eggs had no humidity from mums wet feathers even once in the 28 days, and the ducklings hatched just fine, 100% hatch for every fertile egg.