Odd Birth Defects. Incubation advice needed!

[My15Ducks]

I’ve been using a govee thermometer & hygrometer. What humidity do you use for incubation? The one time I had a high embryo death rate in early incubation was the time I tried dry incubation

 

[lobbstertael]

I try for 30-50% humidity- usually I just make sure it has water in the tray. I ended up with 9 healthy chicks. I opened up my failed eggs and there were 3 stages that didn't make it. Early-mid death, mid-development, and hatch time. I'm waiting for my new thermometers to arrive to try and calibrate the incubator.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

My house is about 70-72 degrees. I had an old Little Giant Still Air that i ran at 101-103 degrees and had pretty good luck with it, not being very precise. It seemed to stop working so I figured it was time for an upgrade. I got an incuview incubator in 2021 and had awesome hatches with it for about 2 years, and then last year it started acting up. I think I may have gotten some water in the module when cleaning, but it runs fine and seems to hold temperature. I just don't know. I bumped up the temp this hatch to 100 degrees. (I was using the recommended setting of 99.5 because it has a fan) The same thing happened, with chicks gradually dying off as the hatch progressed. Such a let-down! I have 9 live chicks this hatch (out of about 30) with one that hatched early and died, one that is still alive but questionable (has a trail of umbilical tissue and blood) several pipped but not hatched, and several with no hole that were too dark to see thru on candling (green shells). My hatch is 2 days early, which fits with my previous successful hatches in this incubator.

Too hot. I don’t know how to calibrate though. I would try getting two working thermometers and placing one on either side, so you know if it’s a hot spot issue or a bad incubator temperature reader.