Question First time incubating

[Riverbend]

Started incubating eggs beginning of January. Yet to be successful. They seems to develop first 2 weeks then stop. Help!

[Ontario Chick]

Many experienced people on PTO, ready and willing to help,
more information you provide, more likely you will get a helpful answer.
What type of incubator?
What breed birds?
What temperature and humidity is your incubator?
what ambient temperature and humidity?
What do you see after first candling?

[Riverbend]

We have a little giant incubator with forced air, and egg turner.

We are trying to hatch ridley bronze turkeys, and chinese geese. If/once successful we will try our barnvelder chickens.

Incubator temp is 99.5f humidity 65%

Ambient temp is 97f

We candle at 10 days and we see 1/3 to 1/2 shadow . We have one egg 95% full and now it is starting to leak fluid.

[Ontario Chick]

Just a shadow without any veins developing may mean the eggs aren't fertile.
Did you break any eggs before setting, to make sure they are fertile?
There are "turkey" & geese people here that will be able to help more, but in general terms hatching chickens is easier, you may want to start there.
Fertile egg

Infertile egg

[Riverbend]

No I haven't cracked any, but I was told to candle and if you saw the dark circle that is was fertile.

We have cracked eggs after 10 days if no progress. Some look like a fresh cracked egg. The others that have increased in size have a black mass and a pungent odour.

[Killerbunny]

Turkeys and geese are way more difficult than chickens to hatch. Start with chickens. I wonder if also your humidity is too high? Many of us here "dry hatch" and only add water if the humidity goes below 30%. Go by the size of the air sac to gauge humidity. I have successfully used Little Giants but I make sure the room is about 65 to 70 degrees and a steady temp. No draughts or sunlight falling on the incubator by accident. I have less success early in the season and I wonder if that is more to do with less viability at the beginning of breeding. I also rarely have stinky eggs and for turkeys you need to be ultraclean with your incubator. I keep a hatcher especially for my turkeys and NEVER use it for chickens.
http://www.porterturkeys.com/egghatchingtips.htm
The above is a great website with hints and tips for hatching and growing because turkeys can be tricky to get to feed when they hatch. They are a trifle challenged and you need to make sure they eat and drink.

[Brebis]

How do you store and prepare the eggs before putting in the incubator?
Are they clean and if not do you clean them and how?
I've incubated turkey eggs successfully at 100F and 50-60% humidity.

[thegawd]

which kind of eggs seem to have some development? the turkeys? I've never had hardly any luck with waterfowl eggs, they need extra care with getting wet and cooling a few times a day, I'm to lazy for that and if other species of eggs are in there it wouldnt be good for them. but with the turkeys something strange can happen with infertile eggs, they will actually develop but most die before hatching, those that hatch are sterile. this process is called parthenogenesis. turkeys can be very strange!

I do the dry method myself. around xmas I had a small batch of chicken eggs, I simply did what I always do and added very little water up until lock down, I then upped the humidity to 60 with a larger dish. although all of my eggs were fully developed only the first one that pipped was the only one that hatched. the rest unfortunately drowned upon the internal pip, instead of getting air in the air sac they were met with water.

usually the dry method involves keeping the humidity around 45, during the incubation process and then upping it to 60 for lockdown. this usually works perfect for me but it sure didnt this time and Im now questioning the accuracy of my hydrometer.

good luck!!!

[thegawd]

QR_BBPOST No I haven't cracked any, but I was told to candle and if you saw the dark circle that is was fertile.

We have cracked eggs after 10 days if no progress. Some look like a fresh cracked egg. The others that have increased in size have a black mass and a pungent odour.

if they are fertile you will see lots of dark veins at day ten, after even a couple days you should see a spot somewhere inside the egg that will be about an inch in diameter and look like a spider. this is the tiny embro in the very middle and veins that feed it starting to grow and expand.

[Killerbunny]

My eggs are usually clean and I'm picky about what I incubate. I store turkey eggs in my cool room (about 50 in spring) and set once a week. What AL said should work. I just don't add water unless I get a big drop. I also drop the temp a degree on lockdown.