Online Large Fowl Chat Thread

Since I love to chat and hear what you all have to say, I thought it would be a good idea for us to have our own thread. Welcome, chatters!

Thank you. Some people were discussing shipping and I chimed in. We were told to take it to the chat thread and when I looked for one I couldn't find one. I was new (I still am, but newer) and almost felt unwelcome so I decided to not post to this topic until I found a chat thread. I was having a bad day that day and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. . So, leaving that in the past...

How do you adjust humidity in the incubator when there is 85% humidity out side? Here's some background.
My temp ran low on my Hovabator (about 97.5). This was unintentional. My eggs took 24 days to hatch. The only eggs that did hatch were my eggs from my flock. With them I had 100% hatch. I had 3 shipped eggs out of 25 hatch. Those 3 I helped because the membrane was sticking to one that pipped all the way around(the Speckled Sussex I've been waiting for). At this time there was condensation on the window. A friend said the others probably drowned. When I opened the others today most were about the size they should have been to hatch. So, was the membrane too tough or did the increased humidity kill them?
Things are fixed now I hope. I'm doing staggered hatches and a shipped BBS langshan just hatched (2 days late).

Any insight would be appreciated.
Jim

Please don tell me this is in the wrong place.

Shipped eggs are much harder to hatch then eggs that were not shipped. If you had alot of condensation on your window I'd say your humidity was too high and they drowned. I had one hatch that I was out of town when they started to hatch DH had to do it not knowing what he was doing. He drowned one of them but I never told him that. He had the humidity so high that the little ones couldnt dry. When I got back a few hours after they hatched I had to towel dry some of them and put them in the brooder. Lucky that only 1 died. I had a dozen eggs sent to me and only 1 hatched, but my eggs almost all. Try to keep humidity at about 60-65

That 25 were just the ones that went to lock down. There were about 80 to start with. Thanks. What about the changes with atmospheric humidity?
Jim

I don't worry about atmospheric humidity, I just watch the humidity inside the incubator . Welcome to the chat thread. My motto about hatching is, just keep trying until you get it right.
My broody silkie hatched a little one, and I was going to take it and put it in the brooder, but it just was so cute I left it there. It was climbing all over her. It is hard to keep silkies growing, what with pasty butt and all . So I am going to let her try this time. Now I need a pen for them! So I started working on converting a pen in the barn for them. It started raining, with lightning, thunder the whole works. Ended up flooding my garage up to the back of my Mule. I still hadn't finished cleaning up after the lsg dog, so the left over spilled feed is now soggy.
The barn cat has three kittens, I saw them all together this morning. I keep trying to catch the little ones so they will be tame enough to place in homes. They are fast!

Got a lot done on the broody pen today, just need to fix screens over windows and make a top section for the door! What have you guys been up to?

OK.......so we usually use broodys to hatch eggs but some eggs I got in the mail from the chain arrived cracked slightly so I put wax on them and got an incubator to hatch them out. I figured these eggs are too fragile to put under a hen since they have a crack. Crossing my fingers they hatch and I do this right. Don't have any way of judging the humidity in the incubator so it's a guessing game for now, got any hints/tips to help out?

WalMart or Lowe's sell small humidity monitors for around $10. Get shopping!

Thanks for starting this page hot2pot. Like you i have a small farm with milk goats-large black hogs bottle calves -a lot of the old large breed chickens.I also have some silkies-old english-a bunch of white sebastopol geese- some Muscovy ducks-and one friendly emu.I have showed chickens off and on for over 30 years.I'm always building pens and moving birds around.There in Arkansas the chicken sales are down at the livestock sales but they do this every year when it gets hot , so i go every Saturday and set on my hands. Yes those wal-mart monitors work great it takes the guess work out.

Ok.....so off to WallyWorld tomorrow for the humidity monitor. Thanks for the tip you guys are the greatest.