First try at incubation

[kwcoop]

Hello all,

Bought my wife a LG 9200 for X mas. We just went thru our first try. We put 14 eggs in. Candled at 8 days, tossed 3 that obviously weren't doing anything. Candled again at 15 days, had 9 that showed growth and movement. Went on lockdown on day 18, had 1 hatch on day 22, 4 more on day 23. There's 6 that as of yoday(day 25) haven't pipped so I'm guessing they never will. We learned a lot, like our temp was 99.5 and should've been 101.2 with still air bator. But my question now is do we need to vaccinate these chicks? We got the eggs from our own flock, which were mail ordered last year and had the Merks vaccine. Also we had two chicks with curled feet, we put bandaids on top and bottom to hold them flat(my wife saw it on here so I didn't ask!). This should correct it on 3 days or so? Thanks for any info!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You don't need vacinations unless you've already a problem with mereks. Adding here that a vacination does not prevent the bird from being a carrier only keeps it from showing the symptoms. In reality you'd want to know if the flock has a problem if your selling birds to other flocks. My personal take is don't get vacinations so you know the health of your birds and wont inadvertently spread disease.

Your incubation sounds like it was a complete success other than running a degree or two too cold. Good for you! The rule of thumb for still air is 101.5 F measured at top level of eggs. Just a guideline and that number is derived from eggs standing upright. If your eggs are on side and your manually turning them then 100.5 is probably more inline. Even with poorly reading equipment like thermometers if you use the same devices then your hatch rates will soar as you tune to them. Say your chicks are piping late day 19 and most hatching day 20 then you know your running too warm and would run a degree lower next incubation. You can dial in temp through trials and observation. I'd use same device you did this go round and measure at same location you did this go round and run 101 F next time (accidently wrote 100- fixed it). Where you take the measurement is everything in a still air so always measure at same height and location. Your hatch rate will be much better and can fine tune it by which side of 21 days they are going. Perfect world is starting to see pips late day 20 and last hatching early day 22.

The sooner you treat curled toes or splayed leg the better success you'll have. Thin cardboard and tape, band aids, what ever it takes to hold in proper position. If treated that first day can be cured in just a day sometimes. If not starting treatment until second day it can take 3 days and so on. The sooner those problems are addressed the better success and faster the correction. Sometimes it can't be corrected and I cull any of those.

 

[kwcoop]

Thanks egghead, we just used the thermometer that came with it, laid on top of eggs. We found out as well that our room temp would cause some fluctuation too. We are in Indiana, when we started incubation it was 45 out so we had the furnace on. Well after 4-5 days it warned up to 70, so we had windows open, then at night it cooled off
And the house got down to 61, which was nice for us but when we checked the bator it was down to 95 or so. So there were a few days in there the temp was up and down more than it should be. We learned a lot, just hoping we go a few hens outta this small batch!!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Odds are you have at least 2 pullets. Not saying it can't be an all cockerel or all pullet hatch with only 5 but the high percentage odds are you have 2 or 3 pullets of 5 chicks.

And absolutely need a stable room temp and keep the incubators away from windows or solar radiation can overheat them or if open draft cool them down. Many put them in a closet.