zero hatch in my bator??

[kimslack]

I started my first hatch of my own barnyard mixes last month when the weather was fairly cold. I collected the eggs as quick as I could, going down to the nests every few hours. jI live in Western NY and the winter here has been brutal. The polor vortex was really a factor here.

I have two young roosters in with 25 2 year old layers and one of my broody buff orps had 2 little chicks in January so I know the eggs are fertile.

I selected the best ones with no weak areas on the eggs, weighed each one and put six of them into my brand new Brinsea mini advance. I followed the directions very closely. The humidity was puzzleing and I first added 1/2 amt of water to the one well...then added more to the adjacent well a few days later..just wasn't sure here. I weighed them each week and their overall weight loss was very low...it was far less than what it should be....thus the reason to add more water to the wells.

I watched the temps frequently and it would heat to the right temps and the egg turner worked well. The cooling periods were on schedule.

But I had no chicks at all.

Could anyone enlighten me what I may have done wrong. I'll wait a little bit until it warms up a little for my next batch.. I was so looking forward to this... its a bit discouraging.

 

[LunarBug]

Sorry your hatch didn't work. Hopefully someone here will have some great ideas.

Did you candle the eggs to see if they were actually fertile? Sometimes the roo didn't get everyone. Were you candling on specific days after or just weighing them?

 

[kimslack]

Just weighing them...... I should candle I guess. But I think with 2 roos in there, at least one should have been fertile. They are constantly hammering on the hens and they are mostly confined these days due to the cold weather.

 

[CarolinaHen]

Adding more water will decrease the evaporation inside the egg. I use a dry incubation method and it works beautifully. You can read more about it on here, just do a search and tons of information will pop up. Basically, you don't add any water until lockdown. Get a good hygrometer and make sure your humidity stays around 25-30 during days 1-18. Then bump it up to about 65 for the last three days.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Without candling it's really hard to pin down the problem. For example, there's no way to know if your eggs quit late, quit early, or just never developed in the first place. Where the eggs stopped developing is a big help in figuring out why you didn't get any chicks.

 

[CarolinaHen]

Without candling it's really hard to pin down the problem. For example, there's no way to know if your eggs quit late, quit early, or just never developed in the first place. Where the eggs stopped developing is a big help in figuring out why you didn't get any chicks.

Very true! I candle several times during incubation to make sure all are developing like they should.

 

[PrairieChickens]

From what I've read, candling at day 7, day 14, and day 18 is all that you really NEED to do, but I'm fascinated by the contents of my eggs, and candle frequently just to see what's going on and take pictures. XD

 

[CarolinaHen]

I do the same thing!

 

[kimslack]

Okay... next time its candle time.. I'm almost a little squeamish about looking at the contents of fertile eggs. To be honest, I wouldn't even do an autopsy on the unhatched eggs... too creeped out to look inside... but will man up as they say these days and take a look throughout the incubation cycle. ANd will investigate the dry method of incubating. I guess you learn as you go along. Thanks everybody.

 

[PrairieChickens]

I find the process of candling to be fascinating. Believe me, the first time you see that tiny jelly bean embryo move, you'll be addicted to candling too!