Update. The Great Debate: Is it the incubator or the egg?

[yinepu]

The color diagram has a lot smaller air cell on day 18 compared to the pencil diagram. It may be the size of the 14th day, or even smaller, then the pencil diagram. There is not doubt about my eggs having too small of an air cell, what I am looking for is how big the air cell should normally be, and I am tempted to think the color diagram may be closer to accurate then the pencil. What do you think?

i think it's just a difference in the artists rendering dealing with the overall egg shape.. cause if you look at the colored one it's a lot more round of an egg ... either way if you have an air cell on day 18 that is the size of a day 7 air cell it's still way to small.. lol

either way.. shoot for a larger air cell.. I'll check around and see if i can find photos of candled eggs .. i think someone on this forum posted some

 

[mbleily]

Tenman, I am really disappointed with them for doing that. I am going to right to the company and tell them what I think about it too. They give you the impression you can believe what it says and it take all the guess work out of incubating. Not right. It just gave me frustration and agitation.

 

[yinepu]

grr.. so many of them have the air cell covered by their hand.. or down in the hole of the candler.. or angled to show the embryo...

did find a few more diagrams though


from here:




day 17 egg from here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/582286/just-candled-my-eggs/30 post 40

it's still at a weird angle though

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Thanks. I have looked all over for good candling pictures and have not really found any great ones. Actually mine are some of the best I have seen. Even though air cell is small on my pictures, you can even see the blood veins in the egg and the chick inside.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

Tenman, I am really disappointed with them for doing that. I am going to right to the company and tell them what I think about it too. They give you the impression you can believe what it says and it take all the guess work out of incubating. Not right. It just gave me frustration and agitation.

Evidently humidity is difficult to measure. I put two hygrometer in my incubator, one digital and one analog. I have tested both of these using the salt method and the are both pretty close. The digital one was only 1 point off and the analog one was three points of. I put the digital one in first when the GQF was reading 22% humidity. After an hour, the GQF was reading 22% and my digital hygrometer was 9%. So I added a little water to my incubator and put my analog hygrometer in. I just checked them all and they are all reading different. The GFQ is reading 40%, my digital is reading 44% and the analog is reading 52%. So where as before my digital was reading 13% less then the GFQ, it is now reading 4% more. The analog one is closer to the bottom of the incubator (only place I could put it) and that may be way it is reading so much higher, but that does not explain why the difference between the built in hygrometer and my digital one completely flipped.

I am placing a second digital hygrometer in the incubator, just to see what it will say.

 

[mbleily]

Evidently humidity is difficult to measure. I put two hygrometer in my incubator, one digital and one analog. I have tested both of these using the salt method and the are both pretty close. The digital one was only 1 point off and the analog one was three points of. I put the digital one in first when the GQF was reading 22% humidity. After an hour, the GQF was reading 22% and my digital hygrometer was 9%. So I added a little water to my incubator and put my analog hygrometer in. I just checked them all and they are all reading different. The GFQ is reading 40%, my digital is reading 44% and the analog is reading 52%. So where as before my digital was reading 13% less then the GFQ, it is now reading 4% more. The analog one is closer to the bottom of the incubator (only place I could put it) and that may be way it is reading so much higher, but that does not explain why the difference between the built in hygrometer and my digital one completely flipped.

I am placing a second digital hygrometer in the incubator, just to see what it will say.

I totally understand. I have two others also and they all read different altho the two loose ones are closer together than the Genesis. I calbrated the other two but still don't trust them. LOL I just figure they are all off and hope for the best I guess.

 

[yinepu]

hygrometers can change their accuracy between hatches (not every time.. but it happens often enough to warrant constant calibrating) which is why so many people get frustrated with their humidity readings.. even if the hygrometer was right once.. it can change over time.. so blindly trusting a hygrometer will eventually result in a bad hatch if it varies too much from the original reading

weighing eggs is pretty much the only fool proof way to monitor humidity by tracking weight loss of the eggs.. different species of birds will have different percentages of loss needed..
for that you would need an accurate gram scale and weigh eggs when they are first set.. then once a week (preferably at the same day of the week and around the same time of day).. by monitoring weight loss you can adjust humidity as needed

weighing eggs is my preferred method for waterfowl (mostly muscovys and geese) as well as emus... I don't bother weighing chicken or turkey eggs since I have so darn many.. but if they were really expensive eggs and I was doubting my hygrometers or methods then I would weigh them as well

 

[mbleily]

hygrometers can change their accuracy between hatches (not every time.. but it happens often enough to warrant constant calibrating) which is why so many people get frustrated with their humidity readings.. even if the hygrometer was right once.. it can change over time.. so blindly trusting a hygrometer will eventually result in a bad hatch if it varies too much from the original reading

weighing eggs is pretty much the only fool proof way to monitor humidity by tracking weight loss of the eggs.. different species of birds will have different percentages of loss needed..
for that you would need an accurate gram scale and weigh eggs when they are first set.. then once a week (preferably at the same day of the week and around the same time of day).. by monitoring weight loss you can adjust humidity as needed

weighing eggs is my preferred method for waterfowl (mostly muscovys and geese) as well as emus... I don't bother weighing chicken or turkey eggs since I have so darn many.. but if they were really expensive eggs and I was doubting my hygrometers or methods then I would weigh them as well

I didn't know that they could change between hatches. I did know that I calibrated one twice and got two different % from it. only 2 % difference but still it was enough to make me wander if calibrating with salt was accurate. interesting.

 

[Jungleexplorer]

hygrometers can change their accuracy between hatches (not every time.. but it happens often enough to warrant constant calibrating) which is why so many people get frustrated with their humidity readings.. even if the hygrometer was right once.. it can change over time.. so blindly trusting a hygrometer will eventually result in a bad hatch if it varies too much from the original reading

weighing eggs is pretty much the only fool proof way to monitor humidity by tracking weight loss of the eggs.. different species of birds will have different percentages of loss needed..
for that you would need an accurate gram scale and weigh eggs when they are first set.. then once a week (preferably at the same day of the week and around the same time of day).. by monitoring weight loss you can adjust humidity as needed

weighing eggs is my preferred method for waterfowl (mostly muscovys and geese) as well as emus... I don't bother weighing chicken or turkey eggs since I have so darn many.. but if they were really expensive eggs and I was doubting my hygrometers or methods then I would weigh them as well

Could you give a detailed process for weighing chicken eggs? I guess we are talking about percentages here, so what is the percentage of weight that a chicken eggs is supposed to have lost at day 18?

 

[yinepu]

Could you give a detailed process for weighing chicken eggs? I guess we are talking about percentages here, so what is the percentage of weight that a chicken eggs is supposed to have lost at day 18?

overall for chickens the total lost would be 13% through the incubation... (some places say 12%) 13% over 21 days would be 0.62% per day .. by day 18 it would be 0.62 X 18 = 11.16%

so when you collect the eggs you would weigh them.. then make a note of the weight before you put them into the bator.. you can average the weights or weigh each egg and do the math for individual eggs...every time you go to monitor them.. that part is up to you

so as an example lets say you have 5 eggs..
egg 1 weighs 63 grams
egg 2 weighs 61 grams
egg 3 weighs 64 grams
egg 4 weighs 62 grams
egg 5 weighs 65 grams

if you weigh each egg once a week (on the same day of the week and roughly the same time of day)
egg 1 weighs 63 grams and needs to lose a total of 8.19 grams throughout the entire incubation.. or (8.19 / 21 days = 0.39 grams per day X 7 days = 2.73 grams per week
egg 2 weighs 61 grams and needs to lose a total of 7.93 grams throughout the entire incubation.. or (7.93 / 21 days = 0.38 grams per day X 7 days = 2.66 grams per week
egg 3 weighs 64 grams and needs to lose a total of 8.32 grams throughout the entire incubation.. or (8.32 / 21 days = 0.40 grams per day X 7 days = 2.80 grams per week
egg 4 weighs 62 grams and needs to lose a total of 8.06 grams throughout the entire incubation.. or (8.06 / 21 days = 0.38 grams per day X 7 days = 2.66 grams per week
egg 5 weighs 65 grams and needs to lose a total of 8.45 grams throughout the entire incubation.. or (8.45 / 21 days = 0.40 grams per day X 7 days = 2.80 grams per week

if you are averaging all the weights together it would look like
63 +61+ 64 + 62 + 65 = 315 grams total weight of all eggs.. divided by the number of eggs to get the average ( /5 = 63 grams average weight) after a week weigh the eggs again and average out the new weights.. for these eggs the expected average weight loss per week would be 2.73 grams

so looking at just egg 1:
day 0 (initial weight) 63 grams
day 7 weight: 60.27 grams
day 14 weight: 57.54 grams
day 21 weight: 54.81 grams


you can weigh eggs more often just do the math for however many days it will be