Recent content by BillJ

She'll be in with the eggs tonight but if she hasn't yet shown a need to protect those 11, aside from laying eggs in the open roo cage, she probably won't become broody is my guess. Then I'll take whatever is there and she can continue to use the cage to lay her eggs. I'm waiting for a minnow...

It's been awhile. I gave up on my homemade incubator(s). Reasons being a) failures, b) that over the years, sometimes I'd have 8 or so roos, which I'd keep in their own cages and runs preventing fights. Barnyard mix, they were pets. But it was too much so I had only one roo which I hatched...

Wonder if anyone had tried gluing a mic to the inside bottom of a small plastic cup then placing an 18 day incubated egg atop and recording to play back?

A laser stethoscope that would allow for check of heartbeat by focusing on the shell during lockdown would be nice.

The washing machine dial gear motor strength is iffy at best for an 8" diameter wheel and rolling eggs while the wheel makes occasional contact with the platform or a stray bit of styrofoam gets between the drive grommet and the wheel. I was originally going to go with a fairly strong old dot...

I suspect none of the other eggs will hatch. Two eggs pipped late Day 19 and one of those hatched. I don't have full confidence in the DHT22 since I misted water onto the eggs and got some on the sensor before going on lockdown. I will need a second humidity indicator next time. So, a...

Day 20 & 17 hours, 1 chick fully hatched, golden, dry and active. Since dry, and the shell husk seems dry as well, although the humidity was 72.6% I added water and it's now 76.9%. No changes to the other 5 including the other pipped. But then Day 21 starts this afternoon.

Bought a small stepper motor driven metering pump to automate the humidity maintenance.

I had stored the eggs at ~45° hoping to select for pullets. The two freshest eggs pipped.

With this second polar vortex, at least it feels like a polar vortex, my mobile home got chilly last night. I had the humidity at 70% but this morning it was down to 64%. I added water but the measured humidity didn't come up in a reasonable time - I hadn't warmed it. I added more, then...

If this hatch turns out to be a disappointment I think I know why. When I used this box with the egg rocker, automatically shifting the eggs 45° every 2 hours or every 4 hours, the rocker was stationary in the box. The eggs closest to the hot air in would get more heat. So every other day or...

I bought 3 started birds last September, Buff Orpingtons, one was a runt. One turned out to be a cockerel. The non-runt pullet started laying in early January. The young roo was mounting that pullet very often and had taken to running the flock of older birds as the old roo is now 9 years old...

2PM was start of Day 18. Shut down incubator and transferred eggs to pre-heated brooder while rotator was removed and screen with washcloth put over water tin. Made sure there was plenty of water in coffee cup and tin then transferred the eggs back. The eggs are in half a cardboard dozen egg...

The incubator is tight, hopefully not too tight. If the eggs didn't suffocate for too high humidity so far, and it has generally been over 60%, they might not be getting enough fresh air. Reading other posts on incubators I see some have air vents. Not about to put an air vent in mine, I...

While watching the temperature come back up after the incubator having been open this morning, I saw what appeared to be .4°F jumps in the temperature reading from the DHT22. I was wrong. Moving to a slightly higher set temperature, as suggested by a research article, I see a .2°F temperature...