Doing it wrong (so you don't have to)

[chiques chicks]

To those new to incubating. Don't do as I do. Please read Hatching 101. The information there is eggselent. I am making mistakes intentionally!

I've been very quiet on here lately, but decided to do a fun hatch.  I'm going to make mistakes, not do things by the book and generally mess up. All for science.

the incubator: a Janoel24 I got off ebay cheap last year.  Probably a copy, I don't know. it reads in C. I did modify it by taping a Chinese food lid with slits cut in it over the fan to disperse the airflow.  Last year i loaned this to someone and it's been sitting in my barn for months.  I shook the dirt out of it, no cleaning. Its sitting next to my easy chair on a table next to a window (curtains closed), above a heater in a room with a woodstove.  Temperature in this room fluctuates from 55-75 on a regular basis.

The thermometer: a $10 accurite from a big box store that kinda works, but some of the digits don't totally display.Not calibrated. It says accurite, doesn't it? 

The Hydrometer: What's that?  ok, there is one in the thermometer, but most of the digits don't display.not calibrated anyway.

The eggs:  From my albino project.  Never checked for fertility or hatched from this group before. I rooster, six hens.  I gather the eggs once a day and some of them are cold.  I let them lay on a pile of clothes on my dryer. i flip them around if I think about it. Today is Wednesday. I have three days worth of eggs (8)  I'll probably set the eggs Friday.

Let's see if I can get anything to hatch!


My apologies to everyone that knows the mistakes I'm making!

 

[chiques chicks]

I do have room when I take out the turning tray.. but, shouldn't they be on their side?  And, how would they hatch it they were in an egg tray?

If you incubate upright and place them on a cut down egg carton, they will generally pip near the top and hop or flop out.

You need to cut away a lot of the egg carton leaving essentially a bunch of short rings. I cut the bottoms of each egg section away as well as most of the top, leaving just the connecting ribs and part of the bottom. I use a sharp blade and the styrofoam cartoons.

The incubator I used in these experiments is designed for horizontal incubating and hatching.

 

[chiques chicks]

Don't give up! They don't always take 21 days, various factors can affect it. Make sure you have plenty of humidity and wait. They frequently rest after a pip. Getting out of an egg is hard work.

 

[rcstanley]

Good luck on your hatch. The accurite thermometers I got from a big box store stopped working on lockdown. (It started working again once it came out of the bator.) It really didn't like the added humidity. Also both of mine read about 10% low on humidity.

 

[chiques chicks]

Plugged in the incubator yesterday to get it stable. Temp on my thermometer read 95 last 8 hours later. I decided to remove my baffle and give the fan full airflow. Still at 95 this morning.

I raised the set point on degree C.

If you've never seen one of these incubators, they are plastic, no insulation. They turn the eggs by rolling them in a horizontal position.

The only ventilation is a small hole on to that can be opened or closed. Some for size reference.

Water is added through two holes in the bottom into molded in channels.

Settings consist of a temperature control pad. The fan runs continuously, even during lockdown.

I did remember to turn my eggs that are sitting on the dryer last night.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the temperature high enough. The built in thermostat is way off.

 

[chiques chicks]

Eggs collected to date haphazardly stored on a pile of clothes.

Pointy end? What pointy end?

 

[chiques chicks]

Lesson #1

Don't trust the built in thermometer/thermostat. I raised the set point to 38.5°C and the thermometer ( two actually) are reading around 99°F sitting on the bottom. Since this is forced air, I'll go with that.

This explains why someone who borrowed this unit last year got 2/20 hatch rate.

 

[dekel18042]

So, 24 hours would be 2am. I still have 3 pips. Should I rush and and get these guys out or should I wait a bit longer?

I always let mine in for 24 hours (sometimes more depending on what is happening) but I've read and heard they should be fine for up to 72 hours. After all they ship day olds to you in the mail with no feed and water and how long does it take them to arrive?

 

[chiques chicks]

Noticed both thermometers settled at 97° so I bumped it up to 39.5C, and eight hours later it's starting stable at 99. I'll remove the thermometers tomorrow when I set the eggs, who needs to monitor, right?

The humidity has been all over, from what I can tell, but honestly, I've dry hatched and not monitored before, so it's not unusual to me.

Note: two years ago I threw some excess quail eggs in this incubator without monitoring and got a 50℅ hatch on shipped eggs. Not sure how with the temperature being so far off.

 

[ForrestGump]

This experiment is a great idea! I'm excited to see how it all turns out.

I've done a few experiments myself, but on more controlled matters. Eggs I got from a friend were covered in mud and poop. There were 4 clean eggs which I set, and I washed four and left four really dirty. There were a couple of infertile eggs, but everything else hatched. No difference at all between washed and unwashed.

One time I saved eggs for a month from my favorite hen. The four week old eggs had a 100% hatch rate. The 1 - 2 week old eggs only had a 60% hatch rate. They were handled with care, turned twice a day and stored at 55 degrees while waiting to be incubated.