Are we being overly careful?

[Mrs MIA]

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Hmmm.... I would just take the eggs away each day and put them in the refrigerator...

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

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Your right. I would never clean my incubator, esp. my styrafoam incubator with bleach. The fumes will get into the styrafoam and stay there. I use 3% Peroxide and hot hot water.

 

[walkswithdog]

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Your right. I would never clean my incubator, esp. my styrafoam incubator with bleach. The fumes will get into the styrafoam and stay there. I use 3% Peroxide and hot hot water.

Actually liquid chlorine breaks down VERY quickly once left in open air. Though caustic and effective while intact, it rapidly comes undone and leaves no residue. It stays intact long enough to disinfect, but is not a stable chemical. Apply sunlight once used and it does so even more rapidly.

Powdered and tableted chlorine forms are more stable and contain stabilizers. Reusing buckets/containers that have stored stabilized chlorine products is dangerous. I had a client who stored her dog's food in an old pool chlorine tablet bucket. The dog almost died before the source of the poisoning was discovered.

Liquid chlorine is different. It is not something that leaves a residue.

 

[klf73]

I always use a 10% bleach solution to clean my bator, and rinse well. I also use paper towels and cartons while incubating and hatching so my eggs never touch the styro.

 

[Mrs MIA]

It's true about the liquid bleach... residual chlorine is usually tested at the source, or at least within 24 hours, because it breaks down so quickly. (I'm a former Lab-Rat

) You will still have a little bit of a smell, but if it is air dried sufficiently (we have no sun right now... :|) it will not hurt the eggs at all.

The best thing you can do is wash your hands thoroughly before handling the eggs ...

 

[LoneCowboy]

Ok, so I've wondered about upping my temp just a little. I'm using a hovabator 1588 that is supposed to be set correctly. I'm setting a batch today. I got 6 out of 18 last time. Now, you have to remember, that some of these girls are molting and such, no special feed etc. I'm trying to hatch their replacements. Most of the eggs look like they made it quite far along in the process last time, but just stopped. Only 1 was not fertile

I faithfully follow Miss Prissy's and Speckledhen's advice on hatching. I don't open it very often just to add water. (if I fill the reservoir they tell you it's way too high) I think I got the humidity right now because this was a clean hatch unlike some of my others.

What do you think, should I up the temp one switch?