Cornish Thread

[al6517]

A dry hatch begins at the moment you set your eggs in the bator not just in the hatcher, and you have to have some kind of way to gauge how high/low the humidity is otherwise you never know you even are dry hatching. The rule of thumb in dry hatching is 25-35% and it stays there through the entire hatch start to finish, I have done enough dry hatches now going on 3 yrs in the same incubator to know how much water to add to the pan and when without the use of a hygrometer. But that takes time and your bator needs to be rock solid at every turn regardless, Toy Styrobators tend to be extremely unreliable when trying to get solid hatching conditions time after time from which to gauge your success of any form of hatching.

 

[Cedarknob]

A dry hatch begins at the moment you set your eggs in the bator not just in the hatcher, and you have to have some kind of way to gauge how high/low the humidity is otherwise you never know you even are dry hatching. The rule of thumb in dry hatching is 25-35% and it stays there through the entire hatch start to finish, I have done enough dry hatches now going on 3 yrs in the same incubator to know how much water to add to the pan and when without the use of a hygrometer. But that takes time and your bator needs to be rock solid at every turn regardless, Toy Styrobators tend to be extremely unreliable when trying to get solid hatching conditions time after time from which to gauge your success of any form of hatching.

Like you, I built my own cabinet type incubator, though mine looks nothing like yours. As I had been having success incubating at +/- 30% and hatching +/- 60% in the past with other breeds, I have been pulling eggs from it and using foam incubators to hatch in. I saw the pictures of your home made incubator, it looks good, but unless the two sections are separated there is no way you can raise the humidity in the upper hatching chamber and keep the lower section's humidity down with that design. I do not know if yours circulates the same air through both and if that is why you have to hatch at the lower humidity. I do know you have had very poor hatch ratios with it on your Cornish for the past few years according to you own posts. I do not know what humidity levels you were running it at that time, if you are still using it, or what your hatch ratios are this year.

My own home made 'bator holds temps and humidity rock solid pretty much regardless of room conditions, requiring very little attention and tweaking, but I did not want to reduce the number of turning trays to have a separate chamber with higher humidity for lock down. I have two Hovabators, one with a fan, that I hatch in. The one without a fan is pretty difficult to run and subject to fluctuations with external temperature changes, and the humidity spikes excessively as large eggs or multiple eggs hatch. Adding a fan not made to move air at the same rate as the factory installed one caused greater fluctuations. The other is easier to run, but does require closer monitoring than the big cabinet I built, probably because of the smaller internal area coupled with less insulation value compared to the one I built.. With it I can dump moist air by raising the lid and it will quickly regain stable temperatures, but have to be there to monitor it, which is not always possible.

The reason I did not use a hygrometer this last hatch is because I knew from experience that the high humidity we have here right now meant that I had to add no water at all to keep it up to 30%, and it might not even get down to that. I had no DC eggs in there, which are the ones I have difficulty with, so it would not have been test to see if they hatched better at lower R.H. levels. In retrospect, I wish I had used one, but already knew that the eggs I had in it have a history of hatching well with no more raise in the R.H. than their hatching created in my larger cabinet type. A smaller area will be affected more by eggs hatching.

 

[fowlman01]

I like those old redwood incubators. Seems like you can make a lot of mistakes and still have great hatches. when I used the one I had I could incubate and hatch quail, pheasants, chickens and waterfowl all at the same time. They didn't hatch at the same time, but they were all in there at the same time. It had most of the wiring and controls on the outside with those cloth insulated wires. The downside was that it spun the electric meter wheel so fast you coudn't see the black mark on it. It used lots of electricity.

Walt

 

[Cedarknob]

Walt, I've never owned one, but greatly admire the quality they were built to. I thought about building one, or finding one needing rewired, to see if modern heating elements and controls would make them more economical to run. I settled for an old refrigerator as a cabinet. LOL

I gave a friend a bunch of eggs, including some pure Cornish, which went into a big commercially built incubator. He had a good hatch on the other eggs [except those from a breeding pen of crossbreds that had suddenly gone infertile], but not one egg from the Cornish hatched. I saw those that were obviously from Ameraucana or EEs sired by a Cornish had hatched though.

 

[bengalsmama]

Our Cornish Hen "Corny" ...she was given to us with our Silkie babies and they have been together ever since. She is grown now, but still looks the same..only a bit bigger. We don't eat our chickens so she is now a pet...lol She is very broody, and she lays a lot of eggs. We do eat the eggs sometimes, but they are smaller than our other chicken eggs. She tends to get bullied by some of the other chickens, but she is able to get away from them because she can fly higher! Can she breed with our Silkie rooster? That may sound like a stupid question, but I am new to this. I need to know if I should separate any of them. I also don't even know if our Silkie rooster can breed with our bigger chickens? Thanks!

 

[fowlman01]

Walt, I've never owned one, but greatly admire the quality they were built to. I thought about building one, or finding one needing rewired, to see if modern heating elements and controls would make them more economical to run. I settled for an old refrigerator as a cabinet. LOL

I gave a friend a bunch of eggs, including some pure Cornish, which went into a big commercially built incubator. He had a good hatch on the other eggs [except those from a breeding pen of crossbreds that had suddenly gone infertile], but not one egg from the Cornish hatched. I saw those that were obviously from Ameraucana or EEs sired by a Cornish had hatched though.

I think it is just the cabinet that makes them so flexible cuz the rest of it is about as low tech as you can get. They are actually a fire hazard.....lol

They come up on the auctions from time to time and if you get one with a cabinet that has been taken care of .....they are works of art. I would gut it and put in the high tech stuff. It should be economical to run then...and a whole lot safer.

Walt

 

[Cedarknob]

Our Cornish Hen "Corny" ...she was given to us with our Silkie babies and they have been together ever since. She is grown now, but still looks the same..only a bit bigger. We don't eat our chickens so she is now a pet...lol She is very broody, and she lays a lot of eggs. We do eat the eggs sometimes, but they are smaller than our other chicken eggs. She tends to get bullied by some of the other chickens, but she is able to get away from them because she can fly higher! Can she breed with our Silkie rooster? That may sound like a stupid question, but I am new to this. I need to know if I should separate any of them. I also don't even know if our Silkie rooster can breed with our bigger chickens? Thanks!

I know bantams can sometimes successfully cross with large fowl, with either as the male. I think it possible that the pullet pictured is something other than a Cornish though.

 

[al6517]

I did have a few minor issues at first then got things settled to a point, that point not being as good as I liked. So I just went and upgraded the thermostat and tweeked some other little minor things and got her humming along now pretty well. I do Hatch out of the same compartment even though they aren't seperated, but that's the beauty of it, I still get to run staggered hatches and hatch in the tray, all with out ever changing the humidity levels. So far it's really working strong and I am more than pleased with it's performance to date.

I did buy a big Humidair redwood hatcher this past spring at auction, it runs well and all seems fine, I haven't used it yet though. Some knucklehead painted it grey................ can you believe that, so my plan is to strip it down, take it apart, replace the thermostat with one I got from GQF a preset eletronic one, and a few other minor things. and then bring that redwood back to life and it's got those really cool brass fitting and latches on it. The only thing is the Bas****d is huge and heavy, but hey.................. it looks cool. I will do that this winter after show season and when I have more time.

I agree Steve......... that white bird in that one pic ain't no cornish, not with that body and leg's must be the Hatcheries version of cornish I guess LOL.

 

[Cedarknob]

I think it is just the cabinet that makes them so flexible cuz the rest of it is about as low tech as you can get. They are actually a fire hazard.....lol

They come up on the auctions from time to time and if you get one with a cabinet that has been taken care of .....they are works of art. I would gut it and put in the high tech stuff. It should be economical to run then...and a whole lot safer.

Walt

Did they use to hatch in the bottom of them where the heavier moist air might be, or were they just left in the location they were incubated at?

I have an old book with instructions for building and operating a wooden incubator back before most farms had electricity. Nothing about split hatches, but they covered the eggs with moist cloth at lock down, Eggs were removed and turned by hand, with cooling at certain intervals like a hen leaving the nest to eat, drink, and poop. It was heated by a kerosene lantern's exhaust running through metal pipe, and temperature regulated by a bi-metal, home made, thermostat which controlled a flue. Very high tech for its time. LOL The same book has instructions for a gasoline engine being used to power milking machines, using it to drive the pumps, and the exhaust piped through a water tank to heat water for washing udders and equipment.

 

[al6517]

I can see why Walt say's they are a fire hazard, this one I bought has a flat steel plate as the heating element that sit's against the metal water pan beneath the fan, just wired to the plate with wing nuts. The humidity gauge is an actual wet bulb type indicator operated by a wick in a bottle, seperate from the water pan. It's really pretty dang cool and brings you back to a time long since gone.