Dead chicks in eggs

cluckychick · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2011 1:51 pm

I have been using an incubator to hatch chicks and have just finished the third lot of eggs. I had moved roosters around in a couple of the pens so had doubts that many of the eggs were fertile - only one silkie x egg hatched and the rest were infertile.

I also placed in ten Plymouth Rock eggs from my trio - they hadn't had any changes in their pen, all healthy and everything as per usual. Of these 10 eggs only one chick hatched. Upon breaking the remaining eggs open I found that five were empty and the other four had nearly fully formed chicks inside them. They were almost completely grown with feathering and a small yolk sack outisde the body etc but seem to have died somehow. I have hatched one other batch of eggs from this trio previously and again only one egg hatched with the other eggs having dead chicks or nothing in them.

I'm not sure if it is the incubator and/or I am doing something wrong or if there is something wrong with the chooks genetics? I turned the eggs twice a day up to day 18 and I kept the incubator temp at 38C and kept the water topped up in the channels as per the instructions received with the machine - it is a Janoel(?) brand. Any ideas please??

beccy boo · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:51 pm

have you been turning your eggs two times a day? morning and night?

cluckychick · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:32 pm

Yes I keep a chart and make sure I cross off each time it's done.

beccy boo · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:40 pm

cluckychick wrote:

Yes I keep a chart and make sure I cross off each time it's done.

well im stuck. sorry i couldent help

Rhode Red · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 7:50 am

Beccy Boo,
I use a Janoel 160 egg incubator, I turn the eggs twice a day generally around 6 am & 6pm. I had two hatches last year and managed to get around 75-80% hatches, even though on one occassion some eggs were 3 weeks old. I managed to get 10 out of 12 eggs last night not bad for the start of the season, and will set another 24 or so tonight. These are all RIR large.

I have had Plymouth Rocks before (many years ago) as well as a friend has them and I will agree they don't have the best hatchability rate down around 70-75 %. The chicks seem to develop fully but just don't seem to hatch. Some breeds do seem to have issues with artificial incubation, while it does not matter with others. I had a multiquip 144 incubator then, and I got better hatchability in the larger incubator than the small unit now.

I can remember setting 40 eggs and getting 40 chickens in one batch, noting this was in early October that year not August. I never seem to get the best hatchability or fertility until about now as the weather starts to warm up.

Stick with it,

Rhode Red

Hinterlands · **Joined:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:28 am **Posts:** 3

For me that does not seem to be that unusual I get around 50-60 % never more that are fertile and only 1 or 2 hatch I have changed their diet a little with more mixed greens and I seem to be getting better fertility but yet to see if it affect the hatching rate of eggs

goodoo · **Posted:** Wed Aug 31, 2011 11:10 pm

I have got that too. I have blamed the humidity being to high during incubation. I do not think my aircells have got big enough by hatching and the chickens drown in the egg. I compared my aircells in the incubator to those from eggs under a clucky chook and the chooks eggs had bigger air cells.
This hatching I let the water tray dry out for a couple of days each time instead of keeping it full and am hoping for a better hatch rate. I will know by Friday.

andre · **Joined:** Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:21 pm **Posts:** 612

Humidity too high during setting might be the problem, but it would need to be quite high. Eggs and especially chicken eggs are very tolerant of humidity that it too high or too low.

I'm always suspicious of inbreeding depression when chicks fail to hatch like that. Might be a plan to change rooster?

Hinterlands · **Joined:** Tue Aug 30, 2011 9:28 am **Posts:** 3

I think I will have to pay far more attention to humidity I think

goodoo · **Posted:** Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:20 pm

Lowering humidity has greatly increased this hatch. I only got about 50 chickens out of 100 fertile eggs last time. This hatch I have 90 out of 100.

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