calling on the experts on HUMDITY

[mcgillagorilla]

HI
can i use the egg carton method in the Brinsea Octagon 20.? I have only hatched out once and they were shipped eggs. They came packaged nicely but ??? Also had a brief poer outage 4 hours but I tried to keep eggs warm. I think they had started to hatch on the correct date if the day you set is counted as zero but it was staggered. What iI did not like is that the ones that hatch are all over the other knocking them around all over the place and I dont know if that was something that may have caused some not to hatch. I was wondering if the egg carton could at least keep things a little more stable.
also....humidity. confuses me. One chick - a BCM - came out with the yolk sac attached and while it was active only lasted 12 hours or so and I found it dead. 2 others looked like they had a bit of it left attached but not to the extent of the other that died. Those two are alive and well. For shipped eggs, power outage, not knowing what I was doing etc... I did have 7 out of 12 viable eggs hatch but the one died so 6 chicks, now 2 and 1/2 weeks old all doing well. One is kinda runty though.
NOW... I have only 3 eggs in the incubator. They are what was left and fertile from my hen i recently lost. I am on day 9 or 10 again depending on how you should calculate. I will candle tonight to see if all is okay but humidity again confuses me. My temp is pretty steady at 99.4 - 99.6. On day 7? i weighed eggs ( i had weighed them at start for this hatch - did not do the weighing thing on my first one) two eggs seemed not to lose much and one seemed to lose too much. Does that make sense. First hatch I kept humidity close to 50 % this time so far I have kept closer to 45%. I am just confused. I really want these three eggs to hatch as they are my only Blue Laced Red Wyandotte eggs.
Any advice would be appreciated and sorry if this seems a little jumbled.
Thanks.

 

[chicks4fun]

Chicks4fun-
Are you saying that you are putting the eggs in an egg carton to hatch?
You're not just laying them on the rack or bottom of the bator to hatch?
Maybe I'm not understanding you right.
I always thought they needed to be laying horizontal, with no obstacles around them so the chick could get out.

Good Luck!

I got this idea from this site. There are many people who swear buy it, keeps the eggs from getting knocked around (if I understand it correctly). Love the picture Cats Cradle posted. I've seen a few others but she cut hers down much better than i did. If you weren't suppose to open the incubator during lockdown I'd take mine out and cut more away. I did cut the lid off, the higher top pieces and holes in the bottom (for air flow).
My eggs are bantam eggs and they are still on their sides, a little.
I have never hatched before in an incubator so EVERYTHING is new to me.

 

[chicks4fun]

Many people use the egg carton method for hatching. My hatch rates improved when I switched from laying on their sides to hatching upright in a carton.

Here's a photo that I took of a chick, but on the side you can see what my cut down cartons look like. You can see that the carton is cut down well below the zip line. I also cut out he bottom for good air flow. Really all that is left of my carton is a bunch of connected circles!

That is a great picture---wish I had seen it before lock-down. I am always learning something new here. Thanks for answering her question on the carton.

 

[quintinp]

Chicks4fun-
Are you saying that you are putting the eggs in an egg carton to hatch?
You're not just laying them on the rack or bottom of the bator to hatch?
Maybe I'm not understanding you right.
I always thought they needed to be laying horizontal, with no obstacles around them so the chick could get out.

Good Luck!

I don't know about Chicks4fun, but in my opinion, leaving them to hatch in the carton is much better for the chick. I think it makes it easier for the chick to get out, because while layed on it's side the egg will get rolled around constantly by other chicks. In my experience, I've noticed that if a chick has pipped, and the egg is rolled over, making the pip face downward, it is harder for the chick to hatch, and they hatch slower.

 

[Cats Cradle]

HI
can i use the egg carton method in the Brinsea Octagon 20.? I have only hatched out once and they were shipped eggs. They came packaged nicely but ??? Also had a brief poer outage 4 hours but I tried to keep eggs warm. I think they had started to hatch on the correct date if the day you set is counted as zero but it was staggered. What iI did not like is that the ones that hatch are all over the other knocking them around all over the place and I dont know if that was something that may have caused some not to hatch. I was wondering if the egg carton could at least keep things a little more stable.
also....humidity. confuses me. One chick - a BCM - came out with the yolk sac attached and while it was active only lasted 12 hours or so and I found it dead. 2 others looked like they had a bit of it left attached but not to the extent of the other that died. Those two are alive and well. For shipped eggs, power outage, not knowing what I was doing etc... I did have 7 out of 12 viable eggs hatch but the one died so 6 chicks, now 2 and 1/2 weeks old all doing well. One is kinda runty though.
NOW... I have only 3 eggs in the incubator. They are what was left and fertile from my hen i recently lost. I am on day 9 or 10 again depending on how you should calculate. I will candle tonight to see if all is okay but humidity again confuses me. My temp is pretty steady at 99.4 - 99.6. On day 7? i weighed eggs ( i had weighed them at start for this hatch - did not do the weighing thing on my first one) two eggs seemed not to lose much and one seemed to lose too much. Does that make sense. First hatch I kept humidity close to 50 % this time so far I have kept closer to 45%. I am just confused. I really want these three eggs to hatch as they are my only Blue Laced Red Wyandotte eggs.
Any advice would be appreciated and sorry if this seems a little jumbled.
Thanks.

Yes... the carton method should work fine in your Brinsea. It will keep the eggs from being rolled around.

Your chick that had the yolk sac not fully absorbed was probably caused by slightly high temps or even the unstable temps caused by your power outage. You say your temps are 99.4 - 99.6, which should be fine. Do you have a back up thermometer to verify those readings? Another thing that causes chicks to hatch with their yolk sac not fully absorbed is people assisting too soon. It is completely normal for the chick to "rest" for a long time (sometimes even 24 hours or so) after pipping before they start to zip. It is during this time that the yolk sac is being absorbed.

Weighing eggs... It is awesome that you weighed your eggs! Few actually take the time to do this, but us analyical types want all the info we can get! You will learn a ton! The first thing you already discovered is the eggs loose weight at different rates. Yep... they do. (Always drives me nuts when real life doesn't fit the mathmatical formula I want it to!) The best you can do is go for an average weight loss for the group.

You should be proud of your first hatch! They were shipped eggs and you had over 50% hatch! That is generally consided good with shipped eggs, but since it was your first hatch I think you did great!!!

 

[mcgillagorilla]

Hi
and thank you.
No i do not have a back up thermometer and I was wondering if I should get one - guess I should.
I did not assist any chicks in any way on that hatch...thought I might have to at one point but one that pipped and then stayed there forever and was getting so knocked by tw othersr, I quickly grabbed out chicks, sprayed water on the rest of the eggs (that was the only one that was pipped at time) closed top and low and behold withing a few minutes the chick started to zip and all slowly but surely. I guess that one needed some water. I was real fast too.
I am going to weigh tonight...did not last night as I am tossed up in figuring what day I am on. Do you count the setting day as zero or 1. Makes a difference in my opinion.
I so wish this hen I have would be broody enough but she is fickle broody. Wants to be broody in the coop but not so much in the nice area I made for her and have had her confined in for 3 days. UGH!
Well approx. 1/2 way thru this hatch and will see what is going on later. Hopefully the three are still viable and looking good.
Cindy


OK NOW I AM SO CONFUSED
just candled and weighed eggs. candling the three eggs ALL HAD VEINS EYE MOVEMENT AND AIR CELL - yeah
weighed - ALL were at the same % of weight loss but too much already. 52 gr. to 42 gr. in 10 days too much 57 gr. to 46 gr. too much.
If I had not weighed...then all would seem ok to me as they look great on candling. HELP....this is frustrating and confusing and I dont know if or what I may be doing wrong. Temp avg. 99.5 humidity avg. 45%

 

[Cats Cradle]

Do you count the setting day as zero or 1. Makes a difference in my opinion.

Well... you will get different answers on this one. I count the first day as day 1, but I consider it to not be done until the full 24 hours is up. That way I will finish day 21 exactly 3 weeks after I set the eggs.

OK NOW I AM SO CONFUSED
just candled and weighed eggs. candling the three eggs ALL HAD VEINS EYE MOVEMENT AND AIR CELL - yeah
weighed - ALL were at the same % of weight loss but too much already. 52 gr. to 42 gr. in 10 days too much 57 gr. to 46 gr. too much.
If I had not weighed...then all would seem ok to me as they look great on candling. HELP....this is frustrating and confusing and I dont know if or what I may be doing wrong. Temp avg. 99.5 humidity avg. 45%

Hmm... that is confusing. So you are already over 19% weight loss? That doesn't fit with 45% humidity. How did the air sacs look? Did they look too large? Going by air sacs is less accurate than weight, but your numbers leave me a bit confused too. Does your gram scale give you any more info than whole grams? My gram scale gives me info to the hundreth of a gram. My kitchen scale will weigh in grams, but I can weigh the same item several times and it will be up or down by a gram. If you think your weights are off at all, then I would trust the air sacs.

If your air sacs seem too big, bump up humidity a bit and see if you can slow down the weight loss. But, if your air sacs look right to you then I would think something in your measurements is off and it may be that your scale isn't accurate enough for such small measurements. Could also be your hygrometer is off and you're not as humid as you think you are, but even then 19% is a lot of weight loss in 10 days.

Whatever you do don't panic!!! (I know... easier said than done.) The chicks are growing and doing well. Even though you are aiming for "ideal" conditions, you also know there is a fairly wide margin of error. There are so many different answers to the humidity question alone... all given by people that have had success at those levels! I think the chicks are going to be fine.

 

[mcgillagorilla]

Well... you will get different answers on this one. I count the first day as day 1, but I consider it to not be done until the full 24 hours is up. That way I will finish day 21 exactly 3 weeks after I set the eggs.

OK then that makes me at 7 hours or so into day 12 right now and due to hatch out on Aug. 5th. Eggs were set around 12:10am on July 16th.

Hmm... that is confusing. So you are already over 19% weight loss? That doesn't fit with 45% humidity. How did the air sacs look? Did they look too large? Going by air sacs is less accurate than weight, but your numbers leave me a bit confused too. Does your gram scale give you any more info than whole grams? My gram scale gives me info to the hundreth of a gram. My kitchen scale will weigh in grams, but I can weigh the same item several times and it will be up or down by a gram. If you think your weights are off at all, then I would trust the air sacs.

Egg sacs looked fine definately not big.
Last night I upped the humidity a little (50%) according to the incubator.
Its a new incubator and it had great reviews so not sure how off the temp and humidity should be but I guess if I am going to hatch at times I should
get a thermometer (wet bulb????) and a hygrometer to make sure that this incubators reading are accurate.

If your air sacs seem too big, bump up humidity a bit and see if you can slow down the weight loss. But, if your air sacs look right to you then I would think something in your measurements is off and it may be that your scale isn't accurate enough for such small measurements. Could also be your hygrometer is off and you're not as humid as you think you are, but even then 19% is a lot of weight loss in 10 days.

Whatever you do don't panic!!! (I know... easier said than done.) The chicks are growing and doing well. Even though you are aiming for "ideal" conditions, you also know there is a fairly wide margin of error. There are so many different answers to the humidity question alone... all given by people that have had success at those levels! I think the chicks are going to be fine.


anyway thank you...I feel a little better and will just hope for the best -

 

[mcgillagorilla]

sorry if seeing reply is confusion as I am still trying to figure out how to work this site and all.

 

[chicks4fun]

There are so many different answers to the humidity question alone... all given by people that have had success at those levels!

oh so, so, so, so very true!!!

I think that is why I simply didn't know what to do myself.