Fully Developed Chicks Never Pipped

[aborland5280]

Hello all,

I am hoping someone can help me troubleshoot my last hatch.

I started with 36 shipped eggs (and I know the risks associated with that). Lavender ameraucana, olive egger, jubilee orpington, and BBS marans. I let them rest for about 48 hours before setting them in the incubator and I candled the air sacs before hand and they looked pretty good.

I calibrated a Govee thermometer/hygrometer and I incubated the eggs at 99.5 temp and a humidity of 35-40%. I opted to do a dry hatch because I have gotten better results with that in the past. Lockdown I bumped the humidity up to 65%. I used one of my GQF 2370s for this incubation, which had given me 100% hatch rates in the past.

Day 10 candle I had one that appeared to be non fertile, and one ring of death.

Lockdown candle I had a better candler and I could see that about ten of the maran eggs were non fertile or quitters.

Chicks started hatching over the last two days. Out of 24 eggs that made it to lockdown I have ten chicks out of the eggs and no other pips. One chick pipped and died. Since no others are pipping, I took the remaining eggs out to candle them and they all appear to be dead. I marked where the air cells were and made a hole in the egg where the air cell was so I could see for myself and in all the eggs I did this with they appear to be fully formed, but they all died before they internally pipped.

All the jubilee chicks hatched. About half the LA chicks hatched. I know marans eggs can be hard to hatch, but even some of the lavender ameraucana chicks suffered the same fate.

Is this something that happens with shipped eggs? Or did something go wrong? I am taking meticulous notes for every hatch I do this year to fine tune it to get the best results in the future so I would love to hear what you all think happened.

Another note I have for this hatch is some of the chicks did not hatch very clean. The first few hatched perfectly, but chicks that came out of the darker eggs appeared to struggle and came out sticky.

TIA for your thoughts

 

[mcdze]

so far i cant pinpoint an exact cause of that, but ive definitely experienced it at times .. two things i can say 'reduce' those scenarios - 1) be sure the incubator circulates in enough fresh air throughout the incubation period, larger incubators can 'seal up' pretty well, i usually fan the lid up once or twice a couple of times a day .. and 2) i seem to get more of that from young hens, especially if the eggs from those hens havent reached full size yet, takes a few months after they start laying .. its not a law, just a general observation, i get best results with eggs from fully matured birds ..

 

[1clicc]

I understand the frustration and the stress. Most of the time, it's us who make the mistake. The problem begins when we start calibrating temperature and humidity. I used to do that a lot, and my hatch rate sucked. Now, my hatch rates are at 98% and 100%. Try my settings and let me know if they work for you. Don't worry about the temp as long as it bounces from 98.9°F to 99.7°F. Too hot, like 100°F to 100.5°F, still hatches but you will have crooked feet. Keep humidity at 45% to 55% all the way to hatch day. My egg turning is set to turn three times a day only. Oh, and my incubator is set to cool the eggs for 10 minutes a day for 14 days; you can do the cooling manually as well. Hope you find this informational.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

Hello all,

I am hoping someone can help me troubleshoot my last hatch.

I started with 36 shipped eggs (and I know the risks associated with that). Lavender ameraucana, olive egger, jubilee orpington, and BBS marans. I let them rest for about 48 hours before setting them in the incubator and I candled the air sacs before hand and they looked pretty good.

I calibrated a Govee thermometer/hygrometer and I incubated the eggs at 99.5 temp and a humidity of 35-40%. I opted to do a dry hatch because I have gotten better results with that in the past. Lockdown I bumped the humidity up to 65%. I used one of my GQF 2370s for this incubation, which had given me 100% hatch rates in the past.

Day 10 candle I had one that appeared to be non fertile, and one ring of death.

Lockdown candle I had a better candler and I could see that about ten of the maran eggs were non fertile or quitters.

Chicks started hatching over the last two days. Out of 24 eggs that made it to lockdown I have ten chicks out of the eggs and no other pips. One chick pipped and died. Since no others are pipping, I took the remaining eggs out to candle them and they all appear to be dead. I marked where the air cells were and made a hole in the egg where the air cell was so I could see for myself and in all the eggs I did this with they appear to be fully formed, but they all died before they internally pipped.

All the jubilee chicks hatched. About half the LA chicks hatched. I know marans eggs can be hard to hatch, but even some of the lavender ameraucana chicks suffered the same fate.

Is this something that happens with shipped eggs? Or did something go wrong? I am taking meticulous notes for every hatch I do this year to fine tune it to get the best results in the future so I would love to hear what you all think happened.

Another note I have for this hatch is some of the chicks did not hatch very clean. The first few hatched perfectly, but chicks that came out of the darker eggs appeared to struggle and came out sticky.

TIA for your thoughts

this happens a lot with my eggs! I think it's because my hens were all hatched in september, so they're all under a year old. it would also explain why I have more success hatching from my aunt's older birds.

 

[aborland5280]

I understand the frustration and the stress. Most of the time, it's us who make the mistake. The problem begins when we start calibrating temperature and humidity. I used to do that a lot, and my hatch rate sucked. Now, my hatch rates are at 98% and 100%. Try my settings and let me know if they work for you. Don't worry about the temp as long as it bounces from 98.9°F to 99.7°F. Too hot, like 100°F to 100.5°F, still hatches but you will have crooked feet. Keep humidity at 45% to 55% all the way to hatch day. My egg turning is set to turn three times a day only. Oh, and my incubator is set to cool the eggs for 10 minutes a day for 14 days; you can do the cooling manually as well. Hope you find this informational.

I’m going to give this a shot on my next round! I honestly feel like I am way overthinking everything and trying too hard

 

[aborland5280]

this happens a lot with my eggs! I think it's because my hens were all hatched in september, so they're all under a year old. it would also explain why I have more success hatching from my aunt's older birds.

That is interesting! I am not sure how old the hens were since they laid the eggs but I will take note of that for eggs that I hatch here at home