ATTENTION NEWBIES TO INCUBATING

[Strader]

I was a bit paranoid also, but I bought a $260 dollar Temp/ humidity gauge on E-bay for $60.00 and calibrated it. No more of those $12.00 Wal-Mart gauges that everyone uses on here....LOL

More is Not better "BETTER is BETTER" Some people put Three of those cheap gauges in their incubators and wonder why things went wrong later.

 

[HickoryHollow]

I was a bit paranoid also, but I bought a $260 dollar Temp/ humidity gauge on E-bay for $60.00 and calibrated it. No more of those $12.00 Wal-Mart gauges that everyone uses on here....LOL

More is Not better "BETTER is BETTER" Some people put Three of those cheap gauges in their incubators and wonder why things went wrong later.

You are not wrong if you can afford that. But If you can't afford that "Better" of a Temp/ Humidity gauge, it isn't the end of the world. Here are some quotes from posts of very successful hatches by beginners who had bare minimum equipment to work with:

"We incubated eggs for the first time and ended up with 38 chicks."

"I got 30 out of 36 not one casualty. The chicks were all big healthy fuzzy butts. The egg that was cracked hatched as well. The End."

"I am just so thrilled that our first hatch was such a success!!!
Out of an original 22 eggs, we have 18 healthy chicks, one died after zipping(? why ?) and three didn't develop. AWESOME!!!!"

"I had to post this I'm just so thrilled! Just finished up a staggered hatch of LS. 9 eggs in the hatcher last week and 9 chicks. 9 more eggs in the hatcher that just finished hatching today and 9 more chicks! These are the first chicks hatched from the cross between the 2 lines I have. Everyone of them is fat and healthy. "


"1st time building a DY incubator
1st time incubating and hatching
Seems to be a 100% hatching rate of success!!!
Pics of last 3 eggs"

 

[Strader]

I know it can be done and I'm sure a lot of successful hatches are here on BYC and other places with very little invested. I remember my grandparents hatching on the floor of the barn with a light bulb, oil heater, and what looked like a wood crate. They certainly never bought into the lockdown and shrink wrap paranoia that so many talk about on here...LOL
Funny I and another Gal on here open our incubators several times during hatching and never have issues. I do not run the higher humidity levels that some do on here. 38% for the first 18 days and then 50% after because while hatching it rises anyway.

 

[Cowpoke]

Thanks Cowpoke! Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Will do!

 

[Cowpoke]

I was a bit paranoid also, but I bought a $260 dollar Temp/ humidity gauge on E-bay for $60.00 and calibrated it. No more of those $12.00 Wal-Mart gauges that everyone uses on here....LOL

More is Not better "BETTER is BETTER" Some people put Three of those cheap gauges in their incubators and wonder why things went wrong later.

Hi Strader,
If you recommend it, please let us know what model and brand it is.

 

[Dawnrenae]

Long weekend for sure.

Our temps dropped this weekend to near freezing, and my broody hen abandoned her clutch. I brought them inside to my incubator. They all appear to be at different stages.

Not sure what I am going to do now. Candled two tonight, though I am scheduled for it tomorrow. I saw one beating heart, still lots of veins, and one very dark mass, with just a bit of air cell left. I could not tell if the chick was moving or not.

I am worried if it is time for lockdown for some but definitely not for the others as I am only a week in.

Any thoughts on staggered hatch?

 

[Strader]

Leave them all in incubator, doesn't matter if they all hatch at same time or not. I don't worry about candling. Don't place everything on candling. No reason to discard any eggs. Give them all a chance. I have not had an egg explode or smell like its bad even after 26 days in incubator. So give them all a chance in the incubator.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Any thoughts on staggered hatch?

Yeah, don’t do it. Start all eggs under a broody or in an incubator at the same time. Don’t leave eggs other hens have laid under the broody after incubation starts. Then you know the schedule. But instead of always having the “ideal” situation, I sometimes have a situation “I deal” with. You have one of those.

If you have a second incubator, set it up as a hatcher. Put the most-developed eggs in that.

If you don’t have a second incubator, you can just put them in your and continue with the normal humidity regime for the largest number of eggs or the most valuable eggs. This is the safest way for those more valuable eggs. The earlier ones are at a higher risk of shrink-wrapping when they hatch with the lower humidity, but these things don’t come with absolute guarantees. They might hatch OK. Certainly give them all a chance.

I have opened the incubator several times after eggs have pipped to deal with a situation. I did shrink-wrap one doing that, but only one. All the others that had pipped did not shrink-wrap when I opened the incubator. It’s a risk I’m willing to take if I have a real reason to take it, but it’s not something I do lightly.

You can try upping the humidity if you see one rocking, hear it peeping, or see a pip. How much is that going to hurt the other later eggs? Depends on how much moisture they have lost and how high you raise it. There is a range of moisture loss that will work.

Then you have the turning problem. Chicken eggs really don’t need to be turned after about 14 days. Early in the incubation when the body parts are forming, turning helps them form in the right places. Also, if the egg yolk or developing embryo comes in contact with the inside of the egg shell, it can get stuck. But after 14 days, body parts have formed and a membrane is in place that protects the developing embryo from becoming stuck to the inside of the shell. That’s the same membrane that can shrink-wrap a chick if it becomes too dry. It’s traditional to turn until lockdown because it is so convenient to take the turner out and up the humidity at one time, but it really doesn’t matter if the egg is turned from about 14 days all the way through hatch. Maybe knowing when turning is actually required (the first 14 days) can help you manage your staggered hatch.

There can be another problem with a staggered hatch. When a chick hatches, it can crawl all over the unhatched eggs and smear them with gook. They’ll poop too. This gook is a good medium for bacteria to grow. It can infect the unhatched eggs and kill the embryo inside. It can also stink. Again, this will not happen each and every time, but it is a risk. You might craft a basket out of hardware cloth to put over the earlier eggs to keep them off the later eggs. Many people would not bother with this but I’ll just mention it. Like many things just because something can possibly happen doesn’t mean it is guaranteed to happen. I just think it is a good idea to know what the risks are and take reasonable steps if you reasonably can.

I remember only one time an egg has actually gone bad. Many decades ago when I was a kid on a farm, a hen hid a nest on the ground in a brush pile. We didn't find it until the chicks were hatching. She hatched most of them out, but one egg had obviously gone rotten. It did not explode but it was weeping a liquid with a rotten egg smell. That's something you want to avoid but in my experience it does not happen that often.

I have not been in that situation so I cannot tell you what I would do. Sometimes what you know in theory isn’t what you actually do in practice. Not knowing the schedule of the eggs from the broody makes it even harder to guess what to do. Hopefully this will help with your plans. Good luck!

 

[HickoryHollow]

Ok, day 12. My average weight loss is pretty high but I hate to raise the humidity any more than it is. Right now I am running about 43% Oh, and egg #8 I believe I wrote the weight down wrong last time. I think it should have been 58 grams last time, not 68 grams.. Here is the updated weight chart:

 

[luvmypets]

Help how much longer teh wait is killing me