what went wrong?

laurenhill11245

In the Brooder
6 Years
May 1, 2013
70
7
43
North Yorkshire, England
So I'll jump straight in here, about 2/ 3 years ago I purchased a Brinsea mini advance, I've had several hatches from it, chickens, ducks and even pheasants. most at 85-100% hatch rate, particularly to the end of last year I was getting 100% hatch rate. I've read loads of forums on hatching, humidity levels etc so like to think I'm not a complete novice. However this year has been a bit of a disaster. Earlier in the year I purchased 6 eggs at a sale and they all appeared infertile, so no babies. However I did not investigate this because I simply assumed that was the case as I could see no growth when candled. But I was away for 5/6 days (I left 2 days after I set up the incubator). so I recently purchased eggs online, I bought 6 so placed an egg of my own hens in just to make it up to 7 (the incubator maximum). 2 of the eggs were infertile (no growth when candled so I cracked them open after about a week and no sign of fertility at all) one of the eggs was cracked when it arrived so again, no growth. However the other 3 and my own egg appeared to be developing, after approximately another week one of the purchased eggs stopped developing and had died. I've never had death at this stage before so wasn't sure what caused it. The other 2 purchased eggs continued to grow as did my own egg. However this morning I have found them all dead, I candled them 2 days ago and they were all fine but today there was no movement and they should have been going into lockdown today but they were no where near developed enough. I have left them just in case but I'm pretty sure they are dead. The reason I'm so confused is I did everything the same as before so I don't understand what has gone wrong. However the incubator was making a different noise from before and this morning was showing the symbol that suggests there was a loss of power, but our power never actually went out. Could this have caused it? I'm wondering if I just need a new incubator. Any thoughts? :)
 
Did you have a secondary thermometer inside the incubator to ensure that the temperature was accurate? Maybe the power supply was malfunctioning and the incubator wasn't getting up to an adequate temperature to maintain proper development.
 
If the digital display is working, but it's not getting up to temp, then it's probably a power supply problem. Order a new power supply and see if that solves the problem. It will be cheaper than buying a brand new incubator if it works.
 
So I'll jump straight in here, about 2/ 3 years ago I purchased a Brinsea mini advance, I've had several hatches from it, chickens, ducks and even pheasants. most at 85-100% hatch rate, particularly to the end of last year I was getting 100% hatch rate. I've read loads of forums on hatching, humidity levels etc so like to think I'm not a complete novice. However this year has been a bit of a disaster. Earlier in the year I purchased 6 eggs at a sale and they all appeared infertile, so no babies. However I did not investigate this because I simply assumed that was the case as I could see no growth when candled. But I was away for 5/6 days (I left 2 days after I set up the incubator). so I recently purchased eggs online, I bought 6 so placed an egg of my own hens in just to make it up to 7 (the incubator maximum). 2 of the eggs were infertile (no growth when candled so I cracked them open after about a week and no sign of fertility at all) one of the eggs was cracked when it arrived so again, no growth. However the other 3 and my own egg appeared to be developing, after approximately another week one of the purchased eggs stopped developing and had died. I've never had death at this stage before so wasn't sure what caused it. The other 2 purchased eggs continued to grow as did my own egg. However this morning I have found them all dead, I candled them 2 days ago and they were all fine but today there was no movement and they should have been going into lockdown today but they were no where near developed enough. I have left them just in case but I'm pretty sure they are dead. The reason I'm so confused is I did everything the same as before so I don't understand what has gone wrong. However the incubator was making a different noise from before and this morning was showing the symbol that suggests there was a loss of power, but our power never actually went out. Could this have caused it? I'm wondering if I just need a new incubator. Any thoughts? :)
First off I agree with checking temps as that is one of the biggest issues hatchers have. I use no less than two thermomters (usually 3) and if they are not reading w/in tenths being in the same spot, I check them. You can call Brinsea and talk to their tech support as well if you think it's a problem with the bator and they can advise you on what may need to be done.

I also wanted to note that in an incubated egg the blastoderm breaks down during incubation if it does not develop so cracking and checking for fertility after incubation is not a reliable means of telling wether an egg was fertile/infertile.

Shipped eggs have higher occurences of not devloping or "quitting" in the earlier stages due to handling through the post office and internal damage to the egg itself.

I would say though, since your own eggs quit that you are on the right track with checking into the temps and how the incubator is working as it sounds as though the development is being delayed because of low temps. I wish you well and hope that you can find the problem and fix it.
 
So I've bought a new power supply and had it running a few hours now. I've also got a thermometer inside and the thermometer is showing the temperature at 10oC less than what the incubator is showing so I'm guessing it's definitely a problem with the incubator not getting up to temperature. Is there anything I can do? or should I just get a new incubator?
 

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