Chicken Egg Weight Loss?

[tori852]

Hello, I'm new to Backyard chickens and chickens in general, but I've been doing all the research I can. A nearby friend will be giving us 24 icelandic chicken eggs to hatch in 2 weeks, so excited! So, we have the incubator, and I've been testing it out to make sure I can get temps and humidity stable. I understand the temps, and lockdown, but what seems to be the most complicated thing is humidity for the first 18 days. Some say to have the humidity around 55, others say thats too high and it should be closer to 45, and still others say it should be under 40. Needless to say, I am a bit confused. Apparently what humidity you should use for the first 18 days depends on the time of year, location of incubator, microclimate, etc. Then I came across this method to calculate the proper humidity, where you weigh the eggs every few days and record their weights. The egg should lose 13% of its weight by day 21, and if its not the right weight when you weigh it on specified day, you know whether or not you should raise the humidity. Anybody use this method, and if so, can you explain exactly how it's done and how to calculate everything? Does it actually improve hatching rates? Seems like a good idea, I like that it takes the guesswork out of things, because I would absolutely hate to mess up and end up with no hatching chickens. Thanks for the help!

 

[AlleysChicks]

I've never weighed my eggs. And 2 dozen would take a bit of time every few days in my opinion.

I seem to have the best results running dry incubation and adding water as needed based on the size of the eggs air cells.

I usually candle on day 7,14, and 17. On day 17 I check the air cells and if they are too small I dump any water and dry incubate until day 19. Then lock down. If the AC isn't where it should be the chicks could drown.

Make sure you mark the air cells when you candle so you can keep track of the AC growth.

Good luck and happy hatching!

 

[tori852]

I like that idea much better than weighing... thanks!

 

[AlleysChicks]

You are welcome

 

[Pyxis]

I weigh eggs that are more temperamental, like goose eggs and peafowl eggs. You want the eggs to lose about 15% of their weight over the incubation period. It's not a bad idea to do your first time incubating, since it will give you a baseline of what your humidity should be at for your area. It's especially handy with shipped eggs, since their air cells can get a little funky in shipping and it's hard to monitor the changes in them to make sure things are progressing as normal. You don't have to do all the eggs, you can weigh just a couple average sized ones and use those to judge how things are going for all your eggs.

But, doing it with the air cells is fine too, especially with local eggs that should have nice, normal air cells for you to keep an eye on

 

[tori852]

Thanks for the replies! I think I will do the air cells this time since the eggs are local, but when we use shipped eggs next time, I will probably use the weighing method.