Little Giant Incubator Tricks

[QuackerJackFarms]

Just wondering how you guys clean your LG's? I'm getting ready to clean mine and put it away til spring.. Need some ideas for that before I dig into this.

Can I use bleach water?

 

[jabowery]

Quote:
I'm in Iowa.

A 12ft diameter swimming pool from Walmart just barely fits in the living room (south facing windows). I lined the bottom with lawn clippings from last summer (that I got from the compost pile). Of course, this means the living room is now covered in a layer of "chicken dust" that makes the front entrance to the house unusable. I tried buying some electrostatic air cleaners and ganging them up in there but it just fried them. The best I've been able to do is take a vacuum cleaner and run it sucking the air through the filters -- but its still not enough. Spring cleaning is going to be fun. Fortunately, the living room is separated from the rest of the house by double doors that remain closed, and the one electrostatic air filter that didn't get fried deals with the residual dust. Don't worry, this is an 1880s vintage farm house with lots of room and we don't get many visitors since we're so eccentric. I mean, what kind of people would sacrifice their big southfacing picture windowed living room to raising chickens indoors!?!?!

I'm keeping the hatchlings in a rabbit cage in a room warmed by my computers until they are off the chick starter feed, and then transfer them to the pool, which has a 250W lamp hanging low into the pool from the ceiling light fixture. Right now, there are 6 pullets in there hatched around Oct 1 that are about to be kicked outside with the rest of the flock to make way for this latest incubator run.

 

[ChicwannaB]

Quote:
I'm in Iowa.

A 12ft diameter swimming pool from Walmart just barely fits in the living room (south facing windows). I lined the bottom with lawn clippings from last summer (that I got from the compost pile). Of course, this means the living room is now covered in a layer of "chicken dust" that makes the front entrance to the house unusable. I tried buying some electrostatic air cleaners and ganging them up in there but it just fried them. The best I've been able to do is take a vacuum cleaner and run it sucking the air through the filters -- but its still not enough. Spring cleaning is going to be fun. Fortunately, the living room is separated from the rest of the house by double doors that remain closed, and the one electrostatic air filter that didn't get fried deals with the residual dust. Don't worry, this is an 1880s vintage farm house with lots of room and we don't get many visitors since we're so eccentric. I mean, what kind of people would sacrifice their big southfacing picture windowed living room to raising chickens indoors!?!?!

I'm keeping the hatchlings in a rabbit cage in a room warmed by my computers until they are off the chick starter feed, and then transfer them to the pool, which has a 250W lamp hanging low into the pool from the ceiling light fixture. Right now, there are 6 pullets in there hatched around Oct 1 that are about to be kicked outside with the rest of the flock to make way for this latest incubator run.

Good to hear. My eggs arrived today and I have to repack and ship half onto a friend by Lansing. I think I could construct a chicken wire top and put it over a large box, and perhaps I can keep them in our entry, large south facing french doors will help keep it toasty warm and a heater will do the job at night. Another set of french door come on into the living room, but it will keep the chicken dust out of the house. Great Idea, I'.. set up my brooder there, thanks.

 

[billiejo21]

Quote:
A couple more chicks hatched a few days ago, and I decided to take them out and put in the corner jars recommended by cmom, as well as a Sunbeam hygrometer from Walmart that cost under $4 (its back with the humidifiers).

That made 6 chicks in the rabbit cage, and, by keeping 3 containers of water with little hand cloths in them full as well as the troughs in the bottom full (it was really too late to lift up the wire grid and put a towel under it) the humidity is near 60%.

I seem to need to tweak the temperature more with this arrangement. Also, it takes a while for the thermometer to get a good reading, and while it is in the hole, it blocks half the circulation (at least of the big holes). So I started leaving the thermometers out. I should probably get a thermometer that I can leave inside and read through the window, the way I do the hygrometer. The problem is the medical thermometers give the maximum reading over a time span, and that would mean opening the incubator for every reading. I need a cheap thermometer that has high accuracy and doesn't need "resetting". Too bad Sunbeam doesn't make a thermometer to go with their hygrometer.

Then this morning, there were all of a sudden 6 chicks in there, with more cracking their eggs!

Are you in a southern climate?? What do you do with hatched chicks if you are northern? Keep them IN till spring arrives.
I really really jumped the gun I think starting eggs in Dec cause I won't get a hatch till Janueary. Never having done this before at ALL in my life I'm trying to figger where I can set up a brooder and keep it protected in a house with 5 terriers and 3 cats, and then once the babies are featherd, they'll probably still have to be protected because Im in mid-Michigan and wibnter has only just begun.

I live in Iowa too...my chicks stay inside in a cardboard box for about the first week...then they get booted to the garage...in a large plasic kiddie pool with heat lamps...where they stay until they are fully feathered...then they are booted to the young chicken house (outside, off heat lamps). I only keep them inside the first week so I can keep an eye out for pasty butts, illness...etc. It's a lot easier to check on them several times a day if they are in my laundry room! I don't think I could handle keeping the babes in the house all winter!! I do have an insulated area of my garage...and I'm debating about picking up an electric space heater for the dead of winter...but we'll see how it goes!!!

 

[Jeffross1968]

Quote:
I don't know about bleach. But I've cleaned mine each time first, with just soapy hot water and a wash cloth, and then, I spray it heavily with white vinegar, and then set it outside to cook in the sun all day. So far, no bacterial issues.

 

[Charon]

i loved the lg when i hatch

 

[jabowery]

Quote:
7 more today, that makes 19.

I'm pretty close to a 50% hatch now and I can see some other eggs with holes in them.

 

[Arielle]

Regarding the thermometer question-- I use fish tank thermometers. I leave on the suction cups and turn them to help keep the face of the thermometer angle for easy reading. Besure you pick a model that reads easily up to 102, some stop at 99 for easy reading. No so useful for incubation.

The human thermometers I use to register the highest temp like a spike which the LG is rumored to do. Also useful. My LG has been high and low at the same time, different side of the incubator.

 

[cmom]

Now that winter is here some people have asked about keeping the LG temperature more stable. This is what I do. I put a towel over the incubator and it hasn't affected my hatches at all. This is when our power went out last winter and the temp outside was in the 30's. When we lost power, I was 2 weeks into incubation. The temp in the incubator was 78 degrees when I discovered it. I put the incubator on a battery pack with an inverter and brought the temp back up. I was really worried but I still had good hatches.

 

[Gypsy07]

So what was your final hatch rate with no turning? I've been dying to get the final count on this!

Were they shipped eggs, or from your own birds? How many eggs originally? How many fertile/infertile? How many blood rings? How many early quitters/late quitters? How many made it to lockdown? How many were fully developed but just didn't hatch? Any other issues like temp/humidity problems that could have affected your hatch rate?

PLEASE give us a write-up of this!