April Hatch Along

Good morning! I'm a week behind the Easter Hatch Along and wanted to start a smaller April thread. I set 106 eggs in my homemade incubator.

I have hatched before, but this is the largest group of eggs I've done, and they are all shipped to me so my methods will adjust for that reason.
My incubator is at about 40% humidity. The temperature has been between 100.5 and 101.5. I may lower that by half a degree because I do have a fan.
I let the eggs sit for 6 - 48 hours before I put them in the incubator.
I did not candle before setting them.
I will candle on 4/3/2017, remove bad eggs, rearrange good eggs, and begin turning (tipping in my incubator) 3 times a day. I'll increase to 5+ times per day as the week trudges on.
I will try to avoid candling again until day 14. I really think candling too much has given me poor hatch rates in the past.
Lockdown will be between 4/17 and 4/18. I'll increase humidity and separate eggs from different sources into hatching baskets.

Let me know if there's a different April thread that I didn't see.
Happy hatching!

Duckworth line Barred Rock eggs are shipping Monday. Should be here Tuesday and I'll add them to the incubator that night, or Wednesday after some time to settle from the brief shipping journey. I'll add photos and such as they happen. I currently have a small flock of bantam barred rocks - some of my favorite birds. Enough to make me curious about their LF cousins. Building a new coop while the hatching is happening - busy April

This is my first ever hatch. I set them today. The incubator is stabilizing after adding them in this pic.
I set 7 swedish flower, 5 black copper marans, 5 crested cream legbar. Eggs sourced locally, so not shipped.
I did candle and marked air cells with a pencil before setting them. I'm also using the hatchabatch app on my phone for candling reminders and am going to do my best to just leave the incubator alone except to check temp and humidity.

Finished my last hatch on Monday and put in a new batch on Thursday. In the brooders are Black Copper Marans, Bielefelders, English Gold Laced Orpingtons and English Mottled Orpingtons. This time I'll be hatching out Narragansett turkeys, Blue Copper Marans, Engish Chocolate Orpingtons, English Buff Orpingtons, Red Orpingtons, Easter Eggers, Chocolate Cuckoo Orpingtons, and a couple of barnyard mix standard size and bantams for good measure.

Welcome, everyone.

tao chick said:

Welcome, everyone.

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Thanks!
I like your home built incubator. Hubby is flirting with the idea of building one after we get the hang of things with this incuview.

Super excited. Temps seem to be rock steady. Never above 99.9, never below 99.1 in any of the times I've checked... which is often because I'm super excited.
Humidity was right at 40% this am. I think that's OK. Should I let it go a tad lower? The eggs are super fresh (12-48 hrs since laid), so plenty of moisture to lose.
I'm might be a tad paranoid about screwing this up. LOL

Kyanite said:

Thanks!
I like your home built incubator. Hubby is flirting with the idea of building one after we get the hang of things with this incuview.

Super excited. Temps seem to be rock steady. Never above 99.9, never below 99.1 in any of the times I've checked... which is often because I'm super excited.
Humidity was right at 40% this am. I think that's OK. Should I let it go a tad lower? The eggs are super fresh (12-48 hrs since laid), so plenty of moisture to lose.
I'm might be a tad paranoid about screwing this up. LOL

Click to expand...

With super fresh eggs you can let humidity drop down to 25% easily. Last year I monitored weight loss as well as air cell changes on fresh eggs and found that a dry beginning was just fine. As long as you know you can get humidity above 60% for day 18-21 you'll be fine.

Also keep in mind that often humidity goes down as temperature goes up.

Thanks tao chick!
That's kind of what I thought, but I was nervous about dropping out of the "incubation period" zone on the hygrometer. I had considered tracking weight loss, but then I got excited and set them before weighing them. lol

Hi, all!

I have my first-ever small batch (8) of eggs in the incubator. They're set to hatch on the 6th...I go into lockdown tomorrow.

I have 3 eggs that look like late quitters, but they don't smell so I'm keeping them in.

We'll see how this goes!

slantrhymes said:

Hi, all!

I have my first-ever small batch (8) of eggs in the incubator. They're set to hatch on the 6th...I go into lockdown tomorrow.

I have 3 eggs that look like late quitters, but they don't smell so I'm keeping them in.

We'll see how this goes!

Click to expand...

GOOD LUCK!!!!