This is my first time hatching eggs. I read everything I could on your site. I bought 48 eggs shipped from GreenFireFarms. 12 were infertile. I candled at day 7&14. Removed the early deaths. 23 drowned (I opened all to check) 12 hatched correctly, 1 would have hatched with assistance but turned around blocked the hole and I believed suffocated. I ran the RCom 50 pro incubator at 100.0*F and even though I set it to 30% humidity it stays at 45%-55%. I did have the one vent open. At day 20 I increased the humidity to 70%. I didn’t increase at day 18 because I wanted to avoid drowning. The eggs were set in cut down cartons not laying horizontally in the turner. My question is this…. If I put the incubator at 101-102*F will the next clutch of eggs lose enough water to not drown? I do not know why my incubator cannot decrease the humidity to 30 % is it because I have the vent open? Thank you for your help! All advice welcome!
Drowning Chicks I need some Advice…
- Thread starter ZeiaZeia
- Start date
No don't raise the heat.
If you know that the incubator is running 15-25% higher humidity than when you went to lockdown you actually raised the humidity to 85-95%.
Shipped eggs are always more "watery", so stay on the low end of humidity when incubating and hatching. I incubate at 30-35% and hatch never more than 60-65%.
RComs are great incubators. Still, if I'd never hatched before I wouldn't start with a bunch of the most expensive eggs I could find. Hindsight is 20/20 though.
If you know that the incubator is running 15-25% higher humidity than when you went to lockdown you actually raised the humidity to 85-95%.
Shipped eggs are always more "watery", so stay on the low end of humidity when incubating and hatching. I incubate at 30-35% and hatch never more than 60-65%.
RComs are great incubators. Still, if I'd never hatched before I wouldn't start with a bunch of the most expensive eggs I could find. Hindsight is 20/20 though.
Mellowmalt
Songster
it is possible for chicks to drown and it is possible for them to suffocate in the egg but drowning is ridiculously rare.
Out of these 23 none will have drowned. I can see I won't get any upvotes to that statement yet if I said they all drowned I would get 5 likes. I will still say it!
The next person will say half of his drowned because liquid came out. The next person will say oh this happened to me too. Seems they all drown...
Hogwash. What makes liquid remain at hatching time is an uneven temperature.
The thing that influences growth rate the most is temperature. Humidity doesn't play much role in that. The humidity will just influence the air cell size. Too big or too small will cause problems sure but not as much as the wrong temperature.
So if the temperature is not right then the embrio will not develop as well and excess liquid will remain. The chick will be too weak and will die in the shell before even breaking the membrane. Thus confirming it was impossible for the chick to drown. They swim in the liquid for 3 weeks, it's only once they pierce the first membrane that they start breathing!
These chicks hadn't even pierced the membrane before they "drowned"
I just don't like people making the wrong conlusions - ie to change the humidity when that won't fix a single egg surviving any better.
Out of these 23 none will have drowned. I can see I won't get any upvotes to that statement yet if I said they all drowned I would get 5 likes. I will still say it!
The next person will say half of his drowned because liquid came out. The next person will say oh this happened to me too. Seems they all drown...
Hogwash. What makes liquid remain at hatching time is an uneven temperature.
The thing that influences growth rate the most is temperature. Humidity doesn't play much role in that. The humidity will just influence the air cell size. Too big or too small will cause problems sure but not as much as the wrong temperature.
So if the temperature is not right then the embrio will not develop as well and excess liquid will remain. The chick will be too weak and will die in the shell before even breaking the membrane. Thus confirming it was impossible for the chick to drown. They swim in the liquid for 3 weeks, it's only once they pierce the first membrane that they start breathing!
These chicks hadn't even pierced the membrane before they "drowned"
I just don't like people making the wrong conlusions - ie to change the humidity when that won't fix a single egg surviving any better.
If you somewhere where it is still summer and warm, even running the incubator dry will still cause the humidity inside to be relatively high. The only thing you can do is to run dehumidifier or air conditioner in the room to low the humidity.
however you should not worry that much about sticking to the humidity guidelines, but rather monitor the air cell growth against what is recommended by candling your eggs every few days. What I do is I run the incubator dry and only add water before lockdown for hatching or when proper size air cell has developed.
Considering the humidity issues, you might try using NO water.I am using distilled we don’t even drink this Florida yellow water it’s gross
It sounds like the incubator is supposed to manage the humidity, but you suspect it might be doing it wrong. But the incubator should not be able to raise humidity if it has no water to work with!
Of course you could still have problems from your humid climate, but at least you would know the incubator is not making it worse.
Buy two, one for the incubator, one for outside the incubator.
- Thread starter
- #66
HeatherKellyB
✝️ Perfectly Imperfect ✝️
@MGG is another one that's very knowledgeable and experienced with incubation/hatching. I do see other very knowledgeable and experienced members here commenting on this thread as well but I figured I'd tag her in case she has anything else to add.
I know it's not always possible but I like to watch for external pip before I raise humidity in preparation for hatch. I've had chicks drown because of the normal lock down humidity increase (in my personal opinion and experience). I haven't researched it but I read that some breeds are more sensitive to humidity fluctuations right at hatch.
I know it's not always possible but I like to watch for external pip before I raise humidity in preparation for hatch. I've had chicks drown because of the normal lock down humidity increase (in my personal opinion and experience). I haven't researched it but I read that some breeds are more sensitive to humidity fluctuations right at hatch.
It's possible you could have a leak from the water reservoir into the base. If your RCOM50 is like the RCOM20, there is a tube that connects the left and right water reservoirs. Take it apart and fill just one reservoir slowly - water should flow through the tube and into the second reservoir, there should be no leaks into the base. Check the tube as well as both reservoirs. The larger base area that's under the turning plate should always be dry.
As for the RCOM sensors, I doubt they are wrong, but there is that possibility. Damage can occur from contamination (eg. fluff from a hatch) of the sensor. We always run our RCOM20 with additional standalone sensors in amongst the eggs. The Xiaomi Mijia Bluetooth humidity sensor is very small and has a high quality digital humidty/temperature sensor (same as the rcom main sensor). You can find these for around $11 each on ebay (US based), or around $5 each if you can afford to wait a couple of months from non-US sellers on ebay, or on aliexpress.
One caveat: these display only Celsius. It is possible to reprogram/flash them to display Fahrenheit but that requires some fiddling around using an android phone. If you're reasonably technical it's not difficult. FWIW we just leave them in Celsius
One caveat: these display only Celsius. It is possible to reprogram/flash them to display Fahrenheit but that requires some fiddling around using an android phone. If you're reasonably technical it's not difficult. FWIW we just leave them in Celsius
Similar threads
New posts New threads Active threads
-
Threads with more replies in the last 15 days
-
Checking-In On Peeps - Post Here To Say Hello!- Started by Nifty-Chicken
- Replies: 919
-
-
-
-
Can I get some help from someone with careless neighbours who own dogs.- Started by RiDaGeckoGuy
- Replies: 102
-
