Would be grateful for some clarification...

ash1 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:25 pm **Posts:** 94

I'm very new at this whole incubation thing and am having pretty miserable success. So far all I have managed to hatch out is two turkey poults and three chookie chicks out of a LOT of eggs.

I understand the temps/humidity readings for incubation, but would be grateful for clarification of timings.

Staring at the 1st of the month for ease;

1st day of the month: Day One of incubation
Stop turning 3 days before due hatch date, which would be 18th day of the month for chickens and 25th day of the month for turkeys/guineas/peafowl?

I have been incubating my eggs in one incubator and then moving them to an incubator/hatcher three days before due to stop turning and give them room to hatch and then dry out, which they wouldn't be able to do in my incubator. Due to my poor results, recently I have gently candled some of the eggs before I put them in the hatcher and they all have life in them at that point, but very few hatch out. They don't even pip, just nothing happens.

In the hatcher I have temps at 37.5 and humidity sits around 75%.

How "overdue" can eggs go - I tend to give up on them about 2-3 days after due date, they should be well and truly out by then?

I'm just so sad that so many of my chicks seem to be crashing at the last hurdle. My latest egg, which was supposed to be my very first peachick and even more exciting, from my "white" side (the side of the peafowl pen that has the white male and female plus two indian blue hens). But it was due yesterday and 24 hours later nuthin', nada, zip, zilch

.

What am I doing wrong?

doggo · **Posted:** Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:09 am

It's really disappointing when the special ones don't hatch.
Everyone seems to have their own theory on things to do with incubation. Mine is that most problems begin before incubation. An egg has to have all the right reserves of protein, vitamins, minerals, energy etc. which of course depends to a large part on the hen having a good balanced diet. So when an egg doesn't quite make the journey I tend to think that the supplies were not enough for the whole trip.
I am presuming that the temperature measurement in the hatcher is reasonably accurate and humidity levels are not consistently too high.

BantamBus · **Joined:** Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:06 pm **Posts:** 3

I never count the day they are set I start from the following day

goodoo · **Posted:** Tue Dec 04, 2012 9:41 pm

Can you leave them in the incubator until they pip. It does not hurt to keep turning them until they hatch.
If you leave them in the incubator and they hatch you will know the hatcher is the problem

ash1 · **Joined:** Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:25 pm **Posts:** 94

Thank you for your responses everyone.

I think I found the problem. We have two pet minipigs and they sleep inside at night in the same room as the incubators/hatchers/brooders. Last night I caught one of them having a good back rub on the edge of the shelf I keep the incubators on - everything on the shelves was rocking like crazy, obviously not at all good for eggies, especially those just sitting in a hatcher with no support to keep them rolling all over the place.

Have rectified this by putting them on a very heavy wooden table which Poppy Porkchops can't budge. Hopefully that was the problem and now it's fixed I might have better luck.

BantamBus · **Joined:** Tue Dec 04, 2012 8:06 pm **Posts:** 3

Bad piggy

love the name Poppy Porkchops :lol:

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