4th Annual BYC NYD Hatch-a-long

[cluck-cluck]

1588 Genesis Hova-Bator. It's forced air. Never had good luck with still air 'bators. : )


It's served me well over the years, I've always had good hatch rates with it. A couple weeks ago when I fired it up the temp was spiking and being spazzy, but when I dusted it off today and fired it up again it went to 90..then in about another hour to 99.5-100 F so we'll see. I plan to collect eggs for 5-7 days and then set some for a 'test' hatch.

~ Aspen

There's no time for a test hatch!!! They won't hatch before the set date!!! We're a week and a half away, and I don't know if I'll get eggs! I'm getting nervous, LOL

Lay, hens LAY!!!

Hello everyone,

Does anybody near Atlanta have an incubator we can borrow for the Hatch-a-long? My 6-year-old made his own incubator and we've been trying to hatch eggs for the last two months (two one-dozen batches) and they just aren't developing. It's really sad. We just signed up to do the Hatch-a-long, and he's REALLY excited, and we're going to buy a new batch of fertilized eggs to do it, but I just don't want him to go through with it and be disappointed all over again. Our eggs are from a local farm, and they develop halfway and then just stop. We candle them almost every day, haha. If we could just borrow someone's tried and true incubator for just this one batch of eggs, I'd be so thankful!! You can even have some of the chicks we hatch!

~Sheree

Like cochins1088 is implying, it'd probably work if you get a good thermostat and hygrometer so you can keep the temperature under control. Run the machine at least a week ahead of time so you can make adjustments until it runs at a constant temperature. If like at my house, your house gets colder at night, I found adding a blanket on top of the right thickness keeps the temperature steady in the incubator. I checked my thermostat by also putting a medical thermometer wrapped up in a couple of zip lock bags of water (like a water blanket, with a rubber band around it to keep the thermostat nestled in there) Then after a few hours or so, checked my digital thermometer against the medical thermometer. I was lucky it ended up on the dot. It was a cheap digital. If not, you know what the difference is and what the digital should read (another thermometer reads 97 when it's 99 degrees, so I just aim for 97) I figure a thermometer would be easier to borrow than a whole incubator, and it would be more fun to hatch in the incubator you built anyway

 

[bnewns]

Hello everyone,

Does anybody near Atlanta have an incubator we can borrow for the Hatch-a-long? My 6-year-old made his own incubator and we've been trying to hatch eggs for the last two months (two one-dozen batches) and they just aren't developing. It's really sad. We just signed up to do the Hatch-a-long, and he's REALLY excited, and we're going to buy a new batch of fertilized eggs to do it, but I just don't want him to go through with it and be disappointed all over again. Our eggs are from a local farm, and they develop halfway and then just stop. We candle them almost every day, haha. If we could just borrow someone's tried and true incubator for just this one batch of eggs, I'd be so thankful!! You can even have some of the chicks we hatch!

~Sheree

just sent you a PM

 

[cochins1088]

Thanks! This has been a science project for us for sure. We used a cardboard box with a glass pane duct taped to one side, and a lid on top. Average temp hovered around 98F. Temp didn't seem to fluctuate much. We had two thermometers in there; one was in open air with the bulb at the top of the egg level, the other was an aquarium thermometer submerged into a glass jar full of water. Humidity was unmeasured, but we had a pan in the box with a sponge always wet in there along with the open glass jar of water, and we checked the air bubble in the eggs daily to make sure it wasn't too big or small. No air flow, but that was the next thing we were going to try, to put a computer fan in there. We didn't open the eggs; we incubated them so long, with nothing progressing inside, that we were afraid they'd explode or stink if we tried.

~Sheree

Ok, if it has a constant temperature with little flucuation then the card board shouldn't be a problem, but if you ever want to start a new, I'd recommend using a styrofoam cooler or something else that insulates better. If both thermometers read the same thing, they should be acurate but I think I found your problem, tempatures are too low. For a forced air incubator they should be 99.5 degrees and for a still air like the one you have now is, they should be kept at 101 - 102 degrees. At 98 degrees, they would at first develop as normal, but maybe slightly behind, but then they would quit developing about half way through. If any somehow made it, they would hatch extremely late and would be at high risk for deformities. I truly believe that is your main problem and if you fix it, it may work just fine. 3 - 4 degrees higher should make a huge difference! For air flow, just make a couple of holes in the top and the bottom (make sure bottom holes are not blocked) and the air will naturally circulate some as heat rises. You don't need a hygrometer if you are watching air cell size. So if you're willing to give it another go, make a couple holes in the bottom and top of the incubator and increase the temperature by 3 - 4 degrees and it should work, Good Luck!!

Oh, and unless the eggs smell from the outside, you are safe to open them and check them out, sometimes you can figure out why they died from doing this.

 

[AlivianAcres]

Well not ALL will be mixed I'm sure you'll get a few pure.
As for me.. Not sure what I'm going to hatch My test hatch right now - not a single BBS bantam Ameraucana egg is showing development. My cockerel is just not working his stuff enough. I'm going to have to break out my spare rooster tomorrow.

Haha you keep a spare? I love that

 

[Blarneyeggs]

One of the BYCers (Hall Family Farm?) has a theory,

"ALWAYS keep a back-up Roo. You will Never, EVER use him. But as sure as the sun rises, the day you decide to just stick with the one Roo is the day a fox comes by, an extra tricky racoon finds that one teeny gap you didn't think you needed to cover at the roofline of our run, your youngest forgets to close the run door after the last egg check.....ect"

 

[deelake71]

Yay! I just ordered the 2012 hova bator genesis 1588 incubator and it's scheduled to arrive before December 6th so I'll be able to use it for the hatch along!

How's everyone else doing? I cannot wait for this hatch along to begin!   e  

That's great! I ordered one too and should be delivered on Friday! e

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

ALWAYS have a back up male for all breeding set ups. Never put all those eggs in one basket.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

Eggs in one basket....hee hee.

Okay, I am making use of this new format with a pic. Yes, we were up before the dawn again and beat the hunters. Took this pic a little later when there was some light.

My Bella:

 

[aoxa]

Well not ALL will be mixed I'm sure you'll get a few pure.
As for me.. Not sure what I'm going to hatch My test hatch right now - not a single BBS bantam Ameraucana egg is showing development. My cockerel is just not working his stuff enough. I'm going to have to break out my spare rooster tomorrow.

Haha you keep a spare? I love that

I keep two spares for those guys

One of the BYCers (Hall Family Farm?) has a theory,

"ALWAYS keep a back-up Roo. You will Never, EVER use him. But as sure as the sun rises, the day you decide to just stick with the one Roo is the day a fox comes by, an extra tricky racoon finds that one teeny gap you didn't think you needed to cover at the roofline of our run, your youngest forgets to close the run door after the last egg check.....ect"

Exactly! It was very hard convincing my fiance of this. The extra roosters can be a pain. This is why I need a bachelor pad

ALWAYS have a back up male for all breeding set ups. Never put all those eggs in one basket.

I can't wait to get another gander.. Can you imagine if something happened to Winston?

All that work to get him here.. all that driving.. Oh that would really tick me off...

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

aoxa. I would be heart broken for you if something happened.


Very nice, We have Luna (3) Titan (3) and Goliath (8 months)

Luna



Titan



Goliath much smaller