Advocating for dry incubating!

[RosemaryDuck]

I just did a recent hatch with 2 eggs (very small batch I know!). Most of my hatch rates up until now have been about 50-60%, with several always having stuck shell or shrink wrapping issues. I finally just did this incubation but literally just did nothing to it the whole time. I added a tiny bit of water in the beginning and set the auto turner. The whole incubation was 20% humidity & 99.7 temp. At lockdown I added water and bumped it up to 70%. Both eggs zipped completely and hatched within about 40 minutes of pipping late day 20. Both healthy and dried off super fast. So 2 out of 2!

Definitely going to try this with a bigger batch somewhere down the line. I loved it. Obviously though you should only do this in regions where your humidity can hold pretty steady.

 

[Smileybans]

I thought this way of incubating was the norm. I incubated my first chicken in a tote covered by a sheet so the humidity wasn’t the best. But I ended up with my rooster. After that hatch I bought an incubator that didn’t have a built in hygrometer. I’m surprised I hatched anything since I’m sure I made tons of mistakes. But the dry method is the method I have always used and what I thought everyone used.

 

[father0fnine]

I just hatched 15 out of 18 eggs with pretty much the same method. I'm sure we put water in "once in a while" but the incubator was in a place that put it out of sight (and out of mind) much of the time... then bing, we saw a bunch of fluffy butts up against the plastic side. We even forgot to move them to the "lock down" hatching incubator we normally use. Lucky for the chicks, the egg turner stops automatically for us.

D