What went wrong?

[DavidKerk]

I recently incubated some chicken eggs. I started with 19 and then took 4 out because they were dead. One hatched in the end. I cracked open the rest on day 30ish. The majority of them were fully developed but dead. The egg's shells were thin but after the shells there was a filmy thing that was almost like plastic wrap and that was fairly hard to get through. What went wrong? Thanks!

 

[thebrianbarno]

To help you someone would need to know the temperature and humidity you kept them at all through the days and also how many times you would open the incubator a day?

 

[DavidKerk]

Before day 18 I kept it at 30 percent humidity and on day 18 I got it up to 53 percent. The temperature was about 102 (I was using a still air incubator) the whole time except for the first about 5 days. Thanks!

 

[thebrianbarno]

Well I can tell you last month I personally had tried what you did. The dry incubation method, keeping the humidity around 30. Although out of 17 eggs only one survived. :/ So I realized that dry incubation is not for everyone because people live in different places with different weather. So I believe the chicks were suffocated inside the egg before hatching. For example I open all of my 17 eggs and a lot were fully developed chicks although I could see that the air cell was too big, not giving the chick enough room to move around and pip on the 21st day. Also day 18 and on the humidity needs to be much higher than 53% to give the egg shell a little moisture for the chick to hatch easily if having any trouble. So I recommend you try to experiment with a humidity around 40% for the first 18 days, nothing under 30%. and then the last 3 days you raise it to between 65% and above. The temperature sounds about right but I highly recommend fixing the humidity. I'm currently incubating 15 eggs in a forced air incubator(home made) with humidity at or near 40% and temperature around 99.5. Hope this helps!

 

[DavidKerk]

Well I can tell you last month I personally had tried what you did. The dry incubation method, keeping the humidity around 30. Although out of 17 eggs only one survived. :/ So I realized that dry incubation is not for everyone because people live in different places with different weather. So I believe the chicks were suffocated inside the egg before hatching. For example I open all of my 17 eggs and a lot were fully developed chicks although I could see that the air cell was too big, not giving the chick enough room to move around and pip on the 21st day. Also day 18 and on the humidity needs to be much higher than 53% to give the egg shell a little moisture for the chick to hatch easily if having any trouble. So I recommend you try to experiment with a humidity around 40% for the first 18 days, nothing under 30%. and then the last 3 days you raise it to between 65% and above. The temperature sounds about right but I highly recommend fixing the humidity. I'm currently incubating 15 eggs in a forced air incubator(home made) with humidity at or near 40% and temperature around 99.5. Hope this helps!

Thanks! I'll try it on my next incubation!

 

[thebrianbarno]

Glad to be a help