Setting Eggs On March 7, anyone else??

[destin0709]

I candled today. I have 10 out of my 14 shipped eggs with veining and movement, my sister in laws 13 eggs I see veining in 9 but others are a little hard to see for sure yet, her eggs are a darker brown and I even tried two lights one on each end of the egg. LOL And I have 7 other eggs 3 silkie and 1 mille have veining. I also threw in some of my call duck eggs that will be a week behind 5 for sure with veining and I even see their little heartbeating in those because the egg is so easy to see threw. I hatched these calls last aug/sept so I'm surprised they are laying fertile eggs already. I'm doing the dry incubation and my temps are staying between 99.3-99.7 and humidity 49% and dropping down to 19% then I add more water to bring it back to 49%. I just wish it was hatch day.

 

[WinklerFarms]

Neat!!

X2

Have you ever incubated using that before?

Is there a thermostat rigged on that or do you just adjust the bulb or insulation?

 

[destin0709]

Tdub: This is my first time trying the dry incubation. Last year I think I lost alot of calls to drowning at the very end so I read alot of people use this method. I use a hova bator 1588 incubator and have all the thermometers I used for the other method. You are supposed to add just a little water to bring it to the humidity, I'm staying at 50% and then let it drop to 20%, leave it there for several hours then add more water again. People just say they get the humidity where it needs then leave it go. I still find myself checking it 2-3 times everyday and marking down temps/humidity on my chart.

 

[WinklerFarms]

Tdub: This is my first time trying the dry incubation. Last year I think I lost alot of calls to drowning at the very end so I read alot of people use this method. I use a hova bator 1588 incubator and have all the thermometers I used for the other method. You are supposed to add just a little water to bring it to the humidity, I'm staying at 50% and then let it drop to 20%, leave it there for several hours then add more water again. People just say they get the humidity where it needs then leave it go. I still find myself checking it 2-3 times everyday and marking down temps/humidity on my chart.

Here in minnesota I have to struggle to keep the humidity in the bator around 50%. I the RH in the air ranges form 10 to 15% here in the winter.

 

[featherfriendlyinIowa52]

I set 33 eggs on 3-8-12 (all mailed to me in 4 different shipments).
This is my first time. I candled last night and not sure what I ended up with. The blue eggs were all viable and I could see veining in a few light brown eggs, however, the rest were either too dark (some BCM's) or so dark that all I saw was speckles. I hope that's not a bad sign and simply just unable to see the veining due to the dark eggs. At any rate, I wasn't willing quite yet to cull any of them. I hope this doesn't come back and bite me. Any advise from those of you who are familiar with this? I probably should have started with white eggs for my first go at it, but just like dark ones.

 

[destin0709]

Mine are a light to medium brown and the mediums are hard to see threw. I left some in that I'm unsure of and hopefully as time goes by I'll see something. I tried 2 lights one on each end of the egg it helped to see some. I've never had darker eggs so I could imagine it's really hard to see threw them! One thing about my calls eggs they are so easy to see threw you can see the little hearts beating but the brown ones are tricky.

 

[WalkingWolf1]

We candled 4 of the 14 eggs. Ours are a barnyard mix and are medium dark and darker. We could make out some veining in all 4 and see movement in a couple. We decided to just leave the others alone and find out on hatch day. The ice-chest incubator has performed really well thus far. Temps range from 100.3-100.8F and RH 40-46%. Best of luck to all moving forward.

 

[featherfriendlyinIowa52]

I'm also leaning toward the "wait & see" approach, unless I smell something awful. Then I'll have to track it down before my bator becomes a container for hazardous waste!

 

[Lucky1]

I also decided to do this after a ordered a candler that arrives a day AFTER my eggs are suppost to hatch, and there is also the fact that i have become a little freaky after i candle the eggs with a low light flashlight because a cant see inside the eggs very well,

oh well i guess i will have to wait and see how many hatch!

 

[chickencrazymamahen]

Hi all! Haven't been on for a bit. Have checked all 41 eggs and have 33 that show fertility, so I am thinking that is great since the roo had 35 hens to service. Some were not as strong as others in growth, so I will check again on day 17 before lockdown to remove duds. I didn't remove any just yet as it has been so dry here I am the 8 duds help to keep the humidity up some. Good luck everyone!