Setting 41 on 6-15, 7-8, 7-31, and 8-23 feel free to join in at any time

[RubyNala97]

I read, somewhere which I cannot find atm, that for each day an egg is older, there's an effect in the hatch time. The gist was; "if you are setting eggs that are of different ages, stagger putting them into the incubator with the youngest eggs going in last". Can anyone remember where I might have seen that?

Walnut said it. She said it adds a half hour to the hatch time. I think that stuff might be the Brinsea disinfectant. I've been trying to order it and the company was out of stock. Update about the chick. I hope it makes it!!

 

[WalnutHill]

Yes, my recordkeeping shows that every day over 4 days old adds 1/2 hour to hatch time, all other conditions being equal. I've hatched out 21 day old eggs that hatched 7-8 hours after the others, and sticky to boot.

 

[FridayYet]

Never heard that before, interesting!

 

[sjturner79]

So do you have a percentage hatch rate for your brinsea now - was it much better than the styrofoam or similar?

 

[NTBugtraq]

My late hatcher died overnight, probably from exhaustion after being cemented into the egg. I totally did not consider that aspect of removing the inner membrane. I don't think I will be trying that again.

Instead, I am going to set eggs 1/2 hour apart based on @WalnutHill observations and see if that doesn't give me a more unified hatch this time. In all 4 of my sets so far I have had chicks hatch on Day 19, so my biggest goal this time is to have none hatch until Day 20, if not Day 21.

Setting 90+ in a couple of days.

 

[NTBugtraq]

So do you have a percentage hatch rate for your brinsea now - was it much better than the styrofoam or similar?

This last set gave me a 51.35% hatch rate from the Brinsea. I do have some issues with the Brinsea; the metal rails that caused 2 eggs to crack (one partly my fault), the lack of a humidity alarm which would tell you that the humidity pump needs more water...but these are surmountable.

Its unfair to qualify "Styrofoam" bators as all one type. There are good ones and bad ones, I suppose. Mine did not accurately measure the temperature, and who knows whether it was getting the humidity right. Even other identical bators from the same company might have variations in those measurements. Had I had a decent humidistat and thermometer in there I could have accounted for the difference.

In my next sets I am making several changes, and only one of these is going to be definitely determined;

• Changing the feed to my laying flock and roo to increase the nutritional value should eliminate nutrition as a reason the eggs die late in the hatch. I won't be able to verify this until my next after next settings as all the eggs I have collected so far are from the poorer nutrition. If, however, the other changes I am making leads to a much better hatch rate, nutrition can be ruled out.
• On Day 18 I will be lowering the temperature to 99.5F, and raising the humidity to 65%. I have never reduced the temperature before on lockdown.
• I will be topping up the humidity pump every day so as to ensure it never runs dry. During the last hatch it ran out of water twice, causing the humidity to drop from 45% to 30% twice. Not sure if this made any significant difference, but its easy to prevent it.
• No metal rails this time, and I probably won't try to set 48 eggs despite it being possible. I set some pretty hefty eggs last time (the largest being 68.54g - which hatched FWIW), and it was a struggle to get them all to lie down when I went into lockdown (I culled 4 clears on lockdown so I was trying to get 44 eggs on their side, which just did not fit, so many were still on a slant during lockdown) This time I will load it with the eggs lying on their side to figure out how many can fit, then stand that many up.
• I am also going to be setting the eggs according to their lay date. I will set my oldest eggs first, then 30 minutes later for each lay day. My oldest eggs will be 15-16 days...which I realize is stretching it but so far my hatches haven't seemed related to lay date.

Fingers crossed, always something more to learn.

 

[WalnutHill]

• On Day 18 I will be lowering the temperature to 99.5F, and raising the humidity to 65%. I have never reduced the temperature before on lockdown.

What temperature did you run on your Brinsea during the full incubation, and what does the manual recommend? 99.5F/37.5C is recommended for most forced air incubators and is what I use for my top-of-egg temp, setting incubator temps at whatever they need to be in order to attain this. For example, in the GQF, the water/heat/thermostat shelf is 0.5-1.0F higher than the egg trays below, so the thermostat and GQF thermometer are set to 100.5F.

 

[NTBugtraq]

What temperature did you run on your Brinsea during the full incubation, and what does the manual recommend? 99.5F/37.5C is recommended for most forced air incubators and is what I use for my top-of-egg temp, setting incubator temps at whatever they need to be in order to attain this. For example, in the GQF, the water/heat/thermostat shelf is 0.5-1.0F higher than the egg trays below, so the thermostat and GQF thermometer are set to 100.5F.

I ran the entire hatch at 100.5F, which is what I thought was the ideal temperature. I did not use my spot check thermo on it to figure out what the temp was at the egg...with the brinsea there's no way to get a probe in there without leaving the lid loose. But that does make me want to go now to it and put the entire spot check in there to see what it says.

I just finished reading a paper from Oxford on egg turning, in it they ran their incubator at 99.5F through Day 18, then Day 19 @ 99F, Day 20 @ 88F, and Day 21 @ 90F. They don't discuss these temperatures in the paper as its not about temperature, but egg turning. I do think its interesting they'd vary so much during the final days.

 

[WalnutHill]

I ran the entire hatch at 100.5F, which is what I thought was the ideal temperature. I did not use my spot check thermo on it to figure out what the temp was at the egg...with the brinsea there's no way to get a probe in there without leaving the lid loose. But that does make me want to go now to it and put the entire spot check in there to see what it says.

I just finished reading a paper from Oxford on egg turning, in it they ran their incubator at 99.5F through Day 18, then Day 19 @ 99F, Day 20 @ 88F, and Day 21 @ 90F. They don't discuss these temperatures in the paper as its not about temperature, but egg turning. I do think its interesting they'd vary so much during the final days.

I maintain 99.5 at center of egg, and drop to 99F at hatch time if humidity is low in the incubator (55-65%) and I can't get it higher, or 98.5 if humidity is 65%-75%, or 98 over 75% humidity. The combination of heat and humidity can be a killer. If doing a staggered hatch, which I will be doing again with the GQF, I never drop below 99F to avoid stressing the other eggs.

Most people do not adjust temp at hatch and have good results, I just seek better results.

 

[FridayYet]

Brinsea recommends 99.5. I thought higher temps were for still air incubators?

You might also try a small amount of water in one channel during your next hatch. Then your humidity pump will run less and use less water. Just a thought.

Sorry about your chick!