Polish Breeders Club

This is our first year of breeding/hatching from our own stock.  Some of the "mommies-to-be" are young but this is how it is going:

Golden laced, bearded & non are hatching out great.  100% for all that were fertilized and chicks are doing wonderful.

Buff laced, bearded & non: fair I'd say.  Only have 4 so far, hatch rate 90% of fertilized (which I had to do some roo shuffling so pickings were slim.  Going to start final round tomorrow in incubator.

WCB & blues: horrible.  Fertilized well but the hatching is not going so great, only have one chick and I had to help him out (I know, that's a no-no but he's doing great).  Another was 3/4 zippered and just didn't have the umph to carry through.  And the rest that were fertilized (5) simply didn't hatch out.  The one that didn't make it and "Smoky" our survivor are HUGE compared to the others.  I don't know how they could even turn to pip/zipper at all.  Roo is a year old now, not related to young & 2yo hens he's in with so that rules out in-breeding issues.  All the birds are fed same feed, conditions of coop as similar as one can get.  No mites, been wormed, I can't think of a thing that could be causing this that I'm doing wrong with program.  We're going to try yet another bunch (with the buffs) tomorrow.  I'm really disappointed because we have went through a zillion ladies looking for quality/condition and feel we have some strong potential but geez, it's also disheartening to see these lil' ones make it nowhere.  Any ideas/similar experience?  

Need details about the incubation. Same incubator and same hatch date? Or different ?

What exactly was the type of incubator? what was your humidity? Temp? were there different sizes in the same hatch? how many days? and what hatched on what day and in what order?

is there a light or draft or window that has sun?

Can rule out incubator issues also because the WCB's were in at same time w/the golds & buffs.  I though about position in incubator (it's one of the starofoam things w/the auto turner and fan, the bells & whistles that come with those), but all were scattered throughout the incubator so that ruled out one side hotter or fan too strong, wrong humidity. 

I meant to mention this part of the puzzle in initial post but got distracted.

I will definately log the candling/fertizilation and progress on this next batch. Oh...the eggs were well shaped, not "dirty," so that's not it either...weird. 

were any of them bantams?

and what was the humidity and which hatched first?

Sounds like the numbers were way to small to make generalities. Especially in a hovabator.

If you set 100 eggs and one doesn't hatch that is 90 % but if you set 2 eggs once and the same one doesn't hatch it shows an inaccurate picture of what is actually going on. If you set 2 eggs 50 times and one doesn't hatch every time then you have a better picture to work with.

Small things have huge effects on those styrofoam models and lifting the lid loses so much humidity its a wonder anything hatches. Morning sunshine through a window or drafts or even setting the thing on a towel so the bottom vent holes are blocked can really screw up a hatch.

I would say get a digital thermometer /hygrometer put fresh batterries in it and find out if there are fluctuations in your incubator then set several more hatches recording the data then you can see what is going on much clearer.

oops 99%

the additional thermometer is a great idea and would reveal more on the evenness, or not, of temps.  Thanks!

We're going to continue to pursue another batch of WCB's though this cold snap has slowed the ladies down on the laying.  I do NOT like spring!  Who knows, maybe this summer should one of our ladies go broody I might let her sit and see what happens.