Back at it again.

[rlmullins]

ok so I did away with the home made incubator and got me a little giant. Well the eggs went on lock down on day 18, everything seemed right, but I only had 5 hatch out of 15, some were dead in shell, some were not developed all the way, some were piping and died. I read up on most of it, and it said it was do to my temps while incubating, and humidity on lock down, well I guess my thermometer is crap, I have a digital and wet bulb both, they were showing good, on temp and humidity. Before i go loosing more eggs what is the best thermometer to use, and can some one give me some pictures, and places to find them, I am go crazy over these incubator problems.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

ok so I did away with the home made incubator and got me a little giant. Well the eggs went on lock down on day 18, everything seemed right, but I only had 5 hatch out of 15, some were dead in shell, some were not developed all the way, some were piping and died. I read up on most of it, and it said it was do to my temps while incubating, and humidity on lock down, well I guess my thermometer is crap, I have a digital and wet bulb both, they were showing good, on temp and humidity. Before i go loosing more eggs what is the best thermometer to use, and can some one give me some pictures, and places to find them, I am go crazy over these incubator problems.

If you bought the 9300 and went by the digital display and ran humidity over 40% I'd say that was the problem. The digital displays on the 9300 are usually off a good 3 degrees or more and generally if you're not in a high altitude I recomend using a low humidity and monitoring air cells.

 

[Kraken Farmer]

I had similar results on my first hatch with an air circulating incubator from TSC. We determined that we had not kept the humidity high enough prior to lockdown. This caused the membrane to shrink too small and effectively shrink wrap the chicks so they could not move when they were ready to hatch.

To correct our issues, we moved the incubator to a small room with a lamp to help keep the outside temperature more stable and used sponges in the incubator to keep the humidity between 45-55% prior to lockdown. At lockdown we added more sponges to raise the humidity as high as possible (99%). The result was a hatch of 22 out of 27 eggs. Two of the eggs did not grow at all, one died after peeping, and the other two did not peep.

Hope this helps.

 

[newwestchick]

I used aquarium thermometers from Walmart pet section - just a few dollars each and they can handle the humidity during lockdown without failing. I put a few in different areas of the incubator to make sure the incubator was heating evenly, if it's not you may need to rotate the eggs through the warm and cool spots so they all develop at the same rate. Hope that helps next time!

AmyLynn is a hatching wizard - monitor the air cells and increase humidity at hatch or when the cells tell you to

 

[rlmullins]

I have the 9200 still air incubator, I have an egg turner in it. I ran this last batch dry with about 20% humidity, all my eggs seem to feel the same temp. by touch, and the center of my incubator by a turkey thermometer is hold at 102*, but the thermometer that came with the incubator was not ever showing 90* and the digital one only showed 97*, just trying to get it right.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I have the 9200 still air incubator, I have an egg turner in it. I ran this last batch dry with about 20% humidity, all my eggs seem to feel the same temp. by touch, and the center of my incubator by a turkey thermometer is hold at 102*, but the thermometer that came with the incubator was not ever showing 90* and the digital one only showed 97*, just trying to get it right.

I use the 9200 too, only mine has the fan added. I buy the $6 Springfield Precise Temps and they seem to do well (unlike the Springfield with the dial temp and hygrometer, that is awful). I also have the accurite thermo/hygro combo.