Humidity when incubating Marans eggs, increase, decrease, or same?

[ChooksChick]

Quote:

Leave it to me to have the obscure stuff!!

 

[john in wa]

OK my final hatch was 5 out of 6. i cracked the last egg and it had a dead stiff chick in it. I thought it had pipped but turns out it was a small speck of shell from another egg. so tomorrow ill put another 6 eggs in and see what i get.. anyway back to bed got to be back up at 6 to go pick up a couple Angus calves tomorrow.


I will also add these guys look like giant monster chicks after hatching silkies and frizzles.

 

[upthecreek]

I know this is an older post but could you tell me or do you know what percentage your humidity was doing it the way you did with no water and vents open ??

Thanks ,
Shannon

We hatched several hundred Black Coppers, Wheatens and Gold Cuckoos over the past 2 years in a GQF Sportsman.  I have tried high humidity, low humidity and everything in between.  We now don't add any water until the day before the hatch.  We run all vents wide open for the entire hatch.  I really think this helps and we rarely get a bad chick.  We usually get around 80% live hatch with the Marans.  This works best for us, but it may depend on your local humidity, etc.

 

[Gavwyn]

Out of curiosity, why are the Maran eggs thicker? I just thought that they had a darker pigment on the surface of the eggshell, but maybe I'm missing something. I'd love to know, if anyone can chime in!

 

[TRUE5]

Its unfortunate that this thread was abandoned. Maybe we have some more input from more Marans hatchers? I noticed not only myself to be asking questions on threads and no one is really answering them. What humidity do you use? What seems to work the best for you? Why? Hope we can get this thread up and alive again. I wont be the only one to benefit from your experience. Thanks!

 

[ChooksChick]

Out of curiosity, why are the Maran eggs thicker? I just thought that they had a darker pigment on the surface of the eggshell, but maybe I'm missing something. I'd love to know, if anyone can chime in!

I wouldn't say Marans eggs are thicker. In general, they appear to be the same thickness as all of my other breeds' eggs. I would agree that the pigment on the outside is the difference, and in my opinion, it is this pigment that makes the eggs evaporate less during incubation. When eggs don't evaporate the right amount of the albumin, the chick often ends up larger, and unable to get into the right position or to be able to gain the leverage necessary to pip. When using water during incubation, I would find perfect, large dead chicks that simply couldn't pip to hatch. It's heartbreaking.

Using dry incubation right up until pip day allows them to lose more mass in moisture and they are better able to hatch. This is the reason I sand shipped Marans eggs.

When the eggs are my own, I think they are better off for not having been shipped, and I don't need to sand them. I do need to hatch dry, however.

Its unfortunate that this thread was abandoned. Maybe we have some more input from more Marans hatchers? I noticed not only myself to be asking questions on threads and no one is really answering them. What humidity do you use? What seems to work the best for you? Why? Hope we can get this thread up and alive again. I wont be the only one to benefit from your experience. Thanks!

I only use water after the first pip. I'll let the humidity drop as low as it can the rest of the incubation period.

 

[Anna6]

Ah- here we go- I sent this to a customer back when I had my French Cuckoo Marans.

I just get past the color, then I mist the egg with Betadine water mixed to be like a dark iced tea- this replaces the bloom that just got sanded off...

Pop them into the incubator and there you have it!


Minimum humidity has been in the teens for me. I'm okay with that.

Very interesting. I am waiting on some dark copper marran eggs 6-12 to put in my Genises Incubator along with a barn yard lot. You think it would be sufficient to "sand" the coloring like shown above and then just run the incubator at normal settings or do I still need to worry about special settings for humidity for the marran eggs?

 

[ChooksChick]

Quote:

Sorry, missed this!

It all depends on the color- in the pic, I wouldn't have actually ever done anything to an egg of that shade- it's not dark enough to worry about.

With darker eggs, though, the sanding makes it so that they incubate under normal circumstances. That way you DON'T have to use any other changes. If I was going to incubate dark shipped eggs without sanding them, I'd get the humidity as low as humanly possible for the entire time until the first pip.

 

[JadedPhoenix]

Okay, I know that this has probably been answered and reanswered but I'm asking anyway. I've just got my incubator and I have maran eggs to put in. What humidity level and temp should I put it at before I put the eggs in and what should I keep it at along the hatching process. This is the first hatching I've done and I'll have two separate incubators. One with Maran eggs and one with EE eggs. My son will be doing the EEs in a smaller 4 egg incubator but the Marans will be in a 48 egg one with about 20 eggs in it.

 

[ChooksChick]

I'd leave the water empty until stop day, and then set it at 60%. That's just me...