20 mins of cooling daily during incubation??

[rickerra]

Hi Gang,
I was re-reading my chicken book "How to raise chickens: Everything you need to know" by Christine Heinrichs. I've heard folks mention this as a good all-round info book. I concur.

In chapter 9: Incubation and Care of Chicks, in the section titled "Artificial Incubators" (pg 121)... it reads:

Chicken eggs need a constant temperature of 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Variations in either direction will affect the hatch rate. The eggs benefit from twenty minutes of cooling each day. This corresponds to the time the hen would spend off the nest eating and drinking.

I don't think I've ever read of folks doing this. In a small way, those of us that hand turn would sort of do this when we open the lid to turn. But it sounds like everyone tries to do this as quickly as possible to minimize temperature drops.

This line from the book implies a deliberate daily cool down could be good. At the least, this should ease the hand-turning folks minds that they aren't hurting anything by short periods when we open the lid (excluding final 3 days).

Anybody ever hear of this or try it?

Cheers!​

 

[sonjab314]

I know you have to cool goose eggs daily but I've never heard of doing that for chickens. I have the book "Chickens for Dummies" and it doesn't say anything about it. What year was your book copywritten?

 

[rickerra]

Quote:
2007

 

[sonjab314]

Hmmmm very interesting. I'd like to see is any others have heard of or done this. I use an auto turner so this has me curious.

 

[rickerra]

Additional food for thought about this topic.

I experimented unplugging my incubator overnight a few days ago (pre eggs... haha) and recorded the falling temps (time elapse webcam).
You can see the results on my BYC page:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=78085-got-thermal-mass

After 15 minutes, my egg-o-meter only dropped 1 degree (from 100 to 99) as the air temp dropped from 100 to 91.
After 30 mins, egg-o-meter was at 97 with air temp of 88.

Based on what I've read from others experiences, this definitely sounds like it wouldn't hurt the developing egg...

but to do it deliberately... and daily??

 

[sonjab314]

What kind of bator do you use?

 

[terrilhb]

This is very interesting. I am really curious to see what everyone says. Never thought about that before

 

[rickerra]

Quote:
Mine is a homemade thick styrofoam kind.
<< click "View my BYC page" to see it.

Cheers!

 

[Lark Rise]

In the instructions that came with our Brinsea, it did say that there is evidence that cooling eggs daily is beneficial to incubating eggs. We would open the Brinsea several times a day, but the temps would very quickly build up to 99.5. Our homemade-bator we also opened up 5 times a day to turn the eggs, but temps took longer to build up. We had a better hatch rate with the homemade and I had wondered if this extra cooling had anything to do with it.

 

[seabreeze]

What about lockdown? Isn't the incubator supposed to stay closed during that time? thanks!