Diary & Notes ~ Air Cell Detatched SHIPPED Chicken Eggs for incubation and hatching

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: Dont bother, you missed the part about using small cups in the egg holes lmao!!! the idea is to keep humidity low until you know how much you actually need. USE humidity as a TOOL NEVER a set number and ALWAYS CALIBRATE gauges!!! and never go with just the ones that came with your bator.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

You see that way, with a cup or two, you can grab it out and replace it without a bit of hassle!

 

[BusyBearMama]

Yea that's a great idea - how did I miss that!! I'm... Going to go do that right now .... ( I've got 2 gauges in there, its just doing a dry run so I can't do much at the moment but get it at a 'set number' I just want to be sure I can control it before I put anything in there I think I need to seal the window with plastic its been wet out and that's helped me with humidity before- I kept reptiles for a long time and it helped a bit... ( there's one window in the room its in but otherwise its a good room until about may and at the moment its ideal because I can guarantee no one will get Into it) anyway... I'm totally going to do the cup thing and see how that goes!!! I must have missed more than I meant to :-/ perhaps I should start back at the beginning just to be sure lol

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Yea that's a great idea - how did I miss that!! I'm... Going to go do that right now .... ( I've got 2 gauges in there, its just doing a dry run so I can't do much at the moment but get it at a 'set number' I just want to be sure I can control it before I put anything in there

I think I need to seal the window with plastic its been wet out and that's helped me with humidity before- I kept reptiles for a long time and it helped a bit... ( there's one window in the room its in but otherwise its a good room until about may and at the moment its ideal because I can guarantee no one will get Into it) anyway... I'm totally going to do the cup thing and see how that goes!!! I must have missed more than I meant to :-/ perhaps I should start back at the beginning just to be sure

lol

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101 Start here

 

[BusyBearMama]

But basically I want the humidity to be more controllable than it is, like if I want I at roughly 55 % I want to know I can put it there, if I want it at 25% I don't want to be fighting with it for 3 days I want to ... Basically make it behave lol

 

[ozexpat]

But basically I want the humidity to be more controllable than it is, like if I want I at roughly 55 % I want to know I can put it there, if I want it at 25% I don't want to be fighting with it for 3 days I want to ... Basically make it behave lol

because incubators are not a completly encosed environment, its impossible to set humidity at an exact number without a very fancy incubator or a climate controlled room

The relative humidity of your room is going to effect the humidity inside the bator.

 

[LadyHawkeAvry]

I had a set of eggs sit and only 3/4 hatch only because I was hospitalized, but these were my eggs.  how did it fair? This was a call duck, therefore even greater difference. would love to hear how you made out @LadyHawkeAvry

I immobilized the surviving egg. Even with no turning for several days the air cell never reattached and the embryo didn't make it. Those poor eggs got beaten pretty hard in transport! They were all fertile, and developed well until those wonky air cells got in the way of developing vessels! My second batch has some pretty impressive saddle shaped air cells in a few eggs, but the rest look a lot better. Development is very slow though, even in the tightly temperature controlled Brinsea. I have had this problem before with pekins - they develop despite the loose air cell up until about halfway through incubation. I may do another test of shipped calls - no turning for 48h then no movement other than basic egg turning. No candling, nothing. I'm wondering if I restrict the air cell movement as much as possible I can overcome the failure to reattach. Technically, I could do it with any eggs that come up from the Carolinas - that particular shipping run is really brutal on eggs. I have not had any live hatches of any species when shipped via that route....
I incubate enough shipped eggs that it's in my best interest to see how I can mitigate the problem a bit!

 

[ozexpat]

I immobilized the surviving egg. Even with no turning for several days the air cell never reattached and the embryo didn't make it. Those poor eggs got beaten pretty hard in transport! They were all fertile, and developed well until those wonky air cells got in the way of developing vessels! My second batch has some pretty impressive saddle shaped air cells in a few eggs, but the rest look a lot better. Development is very slow though, even in the tightly temperature controlled Brinsea. I have had this problem before with pekins - they develop despite the loose air cell up until about halfway through incubation. I may do another test of shipped calls - no turning for 48h then no movement other than basic egg turning. No candling, nothing. I'm wondering if I restrict the air cell movement as much as possible I can overcome the failure to reattach. Technically, I could do it with any eggs that come up from the Carolinas - that particular shipping run is really brutal on eggs. I have not had any live hatches of any species when shipped via that route....
I incubate enough shipped eggs that it's in my best interest to see how I can mitigate the problem a bit!

I dont hatch call ducks so it may be completely irrelevant

I have never hatched an egg with a rolling aircell (over 1000 shipped eggs).

As all studies suggest turning is most critical during the first 5 days of incubation, I start turning on day 1. I incubate in trays so the egg is big end up and never roll eggs. I dont bother candling eggs until day 14.

Good luck

 

[BusyBearMama]

Yep I know. Its like with reptiles, but I'm kind if a control freak. I used to label environments with ranges and reasons for adjustments and maintain them 24/7 based on the needs of the animals and the safe ranges for the species. Everything from misters , humidifiers, dehumidifiers, adding water features. Removing things, putting the animals in different places. Sealing windows, adding various different heaters and so on. Adjusting lighting and stuff. There's alwatsva way to protect a range with minimal disruption to the animal/ egg but like you said I don't have a very fancy incubator so its more than just babysitting the incubator. I feel like the biggest problem I'm going to have with it is humidity spiking because it seems with the fan in there the only way to maintain the temperature is to keep the plugs on top in and just the little air holes open, when I do that humidity builds up past where I want it which is very low. If I take the plug out the temp drops 5 degrees but also the humidity drops 5% and I've adjusted the amount of water a lot with lots of different things... Its a styro bator and I'm assuming that's it. I think next time I get one its going to be one of those black and yellow ones that look like they could hatch half as many eggs ( in the model I was looking at) but probably more effortlessly - my eggs started shipping today and I hope to have them in a few days and hopefully they all make it alright :-D its sort of a mixed collection. Its a class project for the littles. This week they learned about chicken embryonic development and we are discussing things like outside of parthenogenesis we don't have a rooster so our eggs likely don't have baby birds in them. Then we are talking about hatching eggs and how birds do it and how we can try but you can't just sit on them and if any do hatch (everyone cross your fingers) we are going to try and identify the breeds- the nice man who is sending them has about 3 dozen breeds and the way he houses them they should all be pure birds but they could be just about anything.. Hopefully they are all nice breeds and we can keep some you know... If they hatch I'm also going to attempt a few for me that I know lol but this is our little project

 

[ozexpat]

Yep I know. Its like with reptiles, but I'm kind if a control freak. I used to label environments with ranges and reasons for adjustments and maintain them 24/7 based on the needs of the animals and the safe ranges for the species. Everything from misters , humidifiers, dehumidifiers, adding water features. Removing things, putting the animals in different places. Sealing windows, adding various different heaters and so on. Adjusting lighting and stuff. There's alwatsva way to protect a range with minimal disruption to the animal/ egg

but like you said I don't have a very fancy incubator so its more than just babysitting the incubator. I feel like the biggest problem I'm going to have with it is humidity spiking because it seems with the fan in there the only way to maintain the temperature is to keep the plugs on top in and just the little air holes open, when I do that humidity builds up past where I want it which is very low. If I take the plug out the temp drops 5 degrees but also the humidity drops 5% and I've adjusted the amount of water a lot with lots of different things... Its a styro bator and I'm assuming that's it. I think next time I get one its going to be one of those black and yellow ones that look like they could hatch half as many eggs ( in the model I was looking at) but probably more effortlessly - my eggs started shipping today and I hope to have them in a few days and hopefully they all make it alright :-D its sort of a mixed collection. Its a class project for the littles. This week they learned about chicken embryonic development and we are discussing things like outside of parthenogenesis we don't have a rooster so our eggs likely don't have baby birds in them. Then we are talking about hatching eggs and how birds do it and how we can try but you can't just sit on them

and if any do hatch (everyone cross your fingers) we are going to try and identify the breeds- the nice man who is sending them has about 3 dozen breeds and the way he houses them they should all be pure birds but they could be just about anything.. Hopefully they are all nice breeds and we can keep some you know... If they hatch

I'm also going to attempt a few for me that I know lol but this is our little project

dont freak over humidity

start at around 35-40%

just weigh the eggs and adjust it based on air cell development.

thats a better indicator of good outcomes than knowing your humidity is 43.45% with a n SD of 0.26 lol