California - Northern

[Kaylish]

BTW I love all the avatars of the Chickens looking directly into the camera makes me think they all have something to say.

That is Joan, shes a almost-crested CLB and VERY personable, she had to check out my camera when I was trying to get pics of my BCMs.

If you do not have a humidity pump, I would let it stay at the 40% humidity range until it went down to 30% or so and then fill the same tank. Have a good hatch!

No pump, so I'll let it run as is. Thank you!

There must be a lot of factors that figure into to it because one method does not seem to work for all of us. I use different settings with different incubators in the same room for best results & came to this by trial & ERROR..............believe me I have lost a lot of eggs trying many different recommendations & have settled on what works best for ME for my set up. The Brinsea cabinet OVA 190 with a digital temp and humidity readout & a humidity module works best for me overall with humidity at 53% throughout the entire process. It raises naturally at each hatch & settles back down. This is with staggered hatches a week apart so there are 4 trays, each set a week from another. By the time the 4th tray(the hatcher/stationary bottom shelf) has hatched I can clean & disinfect it to be ready for the next tray to move down etc with each tray from top to bottom. I hatch in egg cartons for positioning & easy cleanup.
One the Brinsea Octagon 20 that holds 24 eggs & has a digital temp & humidity readout & a humidity module it does well at 45%, again first hatch raises the humidity naturally.
After many disappointments I find this works best for ME overall. It may not for you. My incubators are in a closed glassed in front porch facing east during the hot weather I open a north & south window/door for cross ventilation & add a fan when it is too hot. I have my brooders in the same room.
I live in the hot central valley of California with no water added my hygrometers read in the 20s. I am in gardening zone 8/9

Thank you very much! Just the info I was looking for. I'm in Zone 9 and my humidity stabilized at 14% when I ran it dry for a day so it's a little dryer here.

 

[ronott1]

That is Joan, shes a almost-crested CLB and VERY personable, she had to check out my camera when I was trying to get pics of my BCMs.

No pump, so I'll let it run as is. Thank you!

Thank you very much! Just the info I was looking for. I'm in Zone 9 and my humidity stabilized at 14% when I ran it dry for a day so it's a little dryer here.

Chicken eggs should not be incubated below 25% humidity. That would be the lowest to use if the air cells are not developing correctly.

There is a trade off between air cell development and dehydration of the shell and etc. A lot of sources say that the shell need moisture to make it ready for the chick to chip through it.

 

[tommysgirl]

Good Morning! I have a little sex link experiment going...didn't know if any of you might be able to help me. I set eggs from my Amelia under a broody. She was covered by a New Hampshire. After consulting the SL chart I was hopeful that since she has crele/lbarred parentage the chicks would be solid red if girls and develop barring if they were cockerels. I only had two hatch. Both are red. one has a distinct head triangle and rounded wing feathers the other has a less distinct head stripe and blunt feathers. Neither is developing barring but they do have light and dark markings on their wings.

Any thoughts? I hope to hatch more for comparison purposes but I thought that those of you with genetics experience could help me out.

In addition to the 23 eggs cooking away at Ron's, I have 4 BBS AM/EE eggs from papabrooder under a broody that are all due on Thursday.

Another question This broody has been fostering an egg for my broody silkie. I figured I would slip it under the silkie girl after I discarded any duds under her. It is about 1 week behind the BBS eggs. I candled the silkie broody's eggs yesterday and they are all developing but one looked like it was deveoping only on one side of the egg. One side glows like a clear and the other side clearly has a dancing embryo. Have you all seen anything like that before? Anyway if they are all developing I don't know what I am going to do with the foster egg...Anyone have experience using a homemade hatecher?

 

[ronott1]

Good Morning! I have a little sex link experiment going...didn't know if any of you might be able to help me. I set eggs from my Amelia under a broody. She was covered by a New Hampshire. After consulting the SL chart I was hopeful that since she has crele/lbarred parentage the chicks would be solid red if girls and develop barring if they were cockerels. I only had two hatch. Both are red. one has a distinct head triangle and rounded wing feathers the other has a less distinct head stripe and blunt feathers. Neither is developing barring but they do have light and dark markings on their wings.

Any thoughts? I hope to hatch more for comparison purposes but I thought that those of you with genetics experience could help me out.

In addition to the 23 eggs cooking away at Ron's, I have 4 BBS AM/EE eggs from papabrooder under a broody that are all due on Thursday.

Another question This broody has been fostering an egg for my broody silkie. I figured I would slip it under the silkie girl after I discarded any duds under her. It is about 1 week behind the BBS eggs. I candled the silkie broody's eggs yesterday and they are all developing but one looked like it was deveoping only on one side of the egg. One side glows like a clear and the other side clearly has a dancing embryo. Have you all seen anything like that before? Anyway if they are all developing I don't know what I am going to do with the foster egg...Anyone have experience using a homemade hatecher?

The egg developing on one side will be ok unless the veins get pinched off. The Broody may not have read the memo about turning the eggs more that 6 times a day...

Let us know how it does--I bet it hatches fine though. Broodies do a good job hatching eggs.

 

[Kaylish]

Should have clarified; it was at 14% when I ran it empty (no eggs) to test it out and make sure the temperature would stabilize. The lowest it's been since I set the eggs was 32%; hasn't dropped below 40% since the temp got back up after setting.

Thank you for the catch though; who knows what stupid things I'm gonna do as I figure this whole process out. Really glad I'm running this hatch before I pay for "good" eggs. You should have seen me fumbling to figure out those silly bars on the tray.

 

[tommysgirl]

The egg developing on one side will be ok unless the veins get pinched off. The Broody may not have read the memo about turning the eggs more that 6 times a day...

Let us know how it does--I bet it hatches fine though. Broodies do a good job hatching eggs.

Thanks! New dilemma:

...my silkie is comfortably covering 6 and the broody who is fostering the 7th egg is going to hatch her babies a 8 days before this one is due. Would you just stick it under the silkie next week anyway. She mostly covers 7 but there are might ocasiionally be a bit of the 7th egg sticking out. She started with 7 and I took the one and gave it to the other broody to foster because of that I really thought I would have a dud at 7 days so that I could get it back under her no problem...I don't want to jeopardize the others for the one.

 

[Audio51]

Quote:
Good! no sigh of problems with the quail so I will not treat them. No new deaths this morning (whew!) and the remaining birds look energetic and active. The 3 that died were meaties. I have the Rock Island chicks in the same brooder and none of them were affected. Still have 12 meaties left.

Ive seen reddish poop but not bloody poop of course all the watermelon may have something to do with that

LOL!!! That would do it! Unfortunately this was definitley solid, frank red blood and they have not had any watermelon.

Quote: It is probably a good thing the strain they have was one with bloody poops. That is what made me re-think the cause of death for the first one. I was chalking that up the heat. The 2nd one died after the cool down though and that was when I saw the bloody poop. The 3rd one was probably the one that responsible for that poop and it was doing the Statue thing. I really was not surprised to find it dead the next morning.

Quote: I now...right??? Every time I log on there are 8 pages of new stuff! That is a good thing though. Except that, as I read the posts and mark them fro group reply, as I read further I find the have already been answered....and usually very well, I might add.

Hello All! Been a busy day, doing a lot of reading and I'm hoping to get a quick survey from all you veteran hatchers, especially those who have used Brinseas; what do humidity do you use for the first 18 days?. I've seen everything from 20-55% recommended on different threads here and mine has been between 40-44% since I set my eggs this morning (was running an even 32% empty). I've traced the air cells and will candle on day 7 to try and gauge loss but am looking for a smaller range to shoot for. Thank you!

I run my Brinsea around 40% for the first 18 days

Quote: They seem to have stablized. I lost one more after I started treatment (total of 3 died), but it did not look well last night. It was dead this morning. I am not seeing bloody poop any more and everyone else seems to feel fine. Should I treat for 5 or 7 days at this dose? I have the quail in a separate pen but it is within a few feet of this one. Do I need to worry about them? Should I start preventative treatment for them?

I usually just treat for 5 days, but would do 7 if I had any that were iffy on day 4. Quail can get coccidiosis, but they get their own strain and will *not* get infected from the chicken chicks. I would just keep an eye on them if they were mine.

-Kath
Whew! Thanks for that info. It is definitley a relief!

I guess its a good sign the doors have been open all day today and no one has been injured etc. In fact just saw one of the buffs stand up for herself to one of the Dels. (The half blind one) and they are not running as much from them. Of course the Buffs have the advantage that they will willingly be lap chickens when someone is in the run with them.

Seeing the buff (the more skitish of the 2) stand up to one of the Dels is a very good sign I think.

Sounds like they are getting things worked out. There will always be the one that gets picked on a lot, but the funny thing is that sometimes that one will pick on one higher up in the order for everyone else...

 

[Audio51]

Quote:
I would go ahead and give it to her. They are usually pretty good at rotating them in and out. . You may still get a quitter before hatch is due.

 

[ronott1]

Thanks! New dilemma:

...my silkie is comfortably covering 6 and the broody who is fostering the 7th egg is going to hatch her babies a 8 days before this one is due. Would you just stick it under the silkie next week anyway. She mostly covers 7 but there are might ocasiionally be a bit of the 7th egg sticking out. She started with 7 and I took the one and gave it to the other broody to foster because of that I really thought I would have a dud at 7 days so that I could get it back under her no problem...I don't want to jeopardize the others for the one.

I would move the egg.

I would go ahead and give it to her. They are usually pretty good at rotating them in and out. . You may still get a quitter before hatch is due.

I saw a Broody Silky at Karen's place that had well.... lets just say a lot more than 7 eggs under her. They do rotate them and it is not that cold now so they should be just fine.

 

[EZFarms]

Ive been starting to see like red inflammed places on my girls wings. its only a few (ee who attacked her wing, 2 buff orps and i think 2 australorps) is it normal to be irriated like that or is something wrong? (Stupid question i know)