Early February 2016 Hatch - Who's In?

[CoopDeDoo]

What a great idea. It looks like my little giant bator. Here is my cat issue. It's like kitty TV for them. But they are so heavy, they will pop the glass out. Let me know if that really does deter your kitty!!

So far it has.. the room will be off limit to the cats during hatch.

 

[CoopDeDoo]

Looks like a Farm Innovator. I got mine at TSC. I bought the still air and turner then added an fan to help control heat distribution.

It is a Farm Innovator 4200 - forced air with auto turner.

 

[CoopDeDoo]

I'm in.

I just put 24 eggs in my incubator this afternoon. 6 are pure Blue Wheaten Ameraucana, 6 are Blue Wheaten Ameraucana rooster X Wheaten Ameraucana hen, 9 pure barred rocks, and 3 BR rooster X barnyard mix hen. I use a cheap Chinese made incubator I got off of eBay and my hatch rates have been between 75-80% so far. Hoping I can keep that up.

Welcome and best of luck. I've seen the plastic ones with digital display on Ebay - is that what you have?

 

[TurkenMomma]

Kinda similar. Paints have very distinct black spots on white. And the genetics seem a bit tricky with them. You have to breed paint to either white or black to get a 50% paint hatch. And a paint to paint is around 50% Paint, 25% White, 25% Black according to another post on them. Here's a picture of a paint from the parent birds courtesy twin maple ranch. Oh, And today is day four for the paints so I candled, and out of twenty eggs 14 already have significant veining!!

I love their markings! I think I need to put these on my "want" list. Fingers crossed for a great hatch- 14/20 is not too shabby!

 

[CoopDeDoo]

Went to bed with 41% RH and woke up to 26-27% RH. Still needs a little adjusting

 

[LilChickens2]

Went to bed with 41% RH and woke up to 26-27% RH. Still needs a little adjusting

My Brinsea, fortunately, has remained constant. My Yosoo, which I have on right now to test out and I have planned as my hatching incubator, is a different story. I have to keep on top of adding the water and I find that ALL three of my hygrometers I use for it are reading differently. Just calibrated two with the salt method and marked down the differences (so I remember which is which). If I don't add water in time to the Yosoo, the humidity fluctuates a lot. Last night I tested the "hatching" humidity by adding a little bowl of water and paper towels to see how humidity would hold up. Still fluctuating but it got up to 79% humidity. I have 16 days to figure it out but it is nerve-wracking.

 

[TurkenMomma]

My Brinsea, fortunately, has remained constant. My Yosoo, which I have on right now to test out and I have planned as my hatching incubator, is a different story. I have to keep on top of adding the water and I find that ALL three of my hygrometers I use for it are reading differently. Just calibrated two with the salt method and marked down the differences (so I remember which is which). If I don't add water in time to the Yosoo, the humidity fluctuates a lot. Last night I tested the "hatching" humidity by adding a little bowl of water and paper towels to see how humidity would hold up. Still fluctuating but it got up to 79% humidity. I have 16 days to figure it out but it is nerve-wracking.

I'm glad your Brinsea is staying constant. I calibrated my hygrometer 2 times before my eggs showed up. Both readings were off and it still is acting wonky. I decided to fill up one well and hope for the best. I did add a humidifier in the room where my incubator is at hoping that it would help. I should've opted for the fancy Brinsea with the humidity control! It's making me nervous!

 

[LalaG]

I'm glad your Brinsea is staying constant. I calibrated my hygrometer 2 times before my eggs showed up. Both readings were off and it still is acting wonky. I decided to fill up one well and hope for the best. I did add a humidifier in the room where my incubator is at hoping that it would help. I should've opted for the fancy Brinsea with the humidity control! It's making me nervous!

My humidity is low and I'd like it around 35 and it keeps dropping 29 range. The heat is my main prob. When I have the incubator on a desktop service I feel like it needs additional vent holes because it gets hot, I've caught it 103 twice. I moved it to a round stoll and the bottom holes are open and the temp doesn't spike as much but it's been two days of trial and error (I stabilized it for a day before but needed to get the eggs in so had to move) and temps spiking hot. I'm nervous to set it at 102 since it's already climbing up there and over set at 101. I have one semi reliable temp/RH gage I am praying is right. How do you guys manage the placement of the two wires that measure temp? That is a HUGELY SIGNIFICANT Factor in my temps and I haven't seen anything posted on it?

 

[TurkenMomma]

I caved.

I'm just an hour or so away from day 17 (counting down to hatch day) and I candled my eggs. I have made myself promise to not look again until much later. Out of my 4 (an unimpressive amount compared to everyone else's! Ha!), I have 2 eggs with visible veining starting! One egg has a rolling air cell and one looked infertile. But I'll be pleased with 50% from shipped eggs. Fingers crossed that those two chickies keep developing! Anyone else with anything? Right now mine should hatch on the 3rd. I'll probably be at work.

My third graders have taken advantage of the fact that I love chickens and have asked if we can do a classroom hatch. I agreed. I am hoping to stream my personal chicks hatching here at home live via a UStream feed while we are in the classroom, so I don't have to miss out, and we can have a celebration before we officially start our life cycle unit! Clever teacher...

 

[montverdechick]

Hi everyone! I've hatched cortunix quail in the past, but this my first time hatching chickens. We drove two hours each way today to pick up my eggs from Eight Acres Farm in Alachua, FL. Set 28 eggs in my Hovabator...temp is at 99.5, RH is at 44%. Very excited for this hatch of Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Amerucanas, Blue and Black Copper Marans and F1/F2 Olive Eggers.

Looking forward to hatching wth all of you! Good luck!