Dry Hatch Dry Incubation???

[wolftracks]

OK here's the thing.

I've had problems getting some of my breeds to hatch, one being FBCMs. I know those like a little higher humidity, so I hear.

The past year, I've had more hit or miss hatches than I can afford. I started using the cheatsheet that chookschick has and it usually works great. Hatch rates went way up again.

A couple of months ago I posted about my quail hatching before lockdown in my Sportsman. I opened it up to add water and save quail chicks and although I got lots I could have gotten more. Most of these birds hatched completely in a dry bator.

Moving forward. I heard peeping in the LG I use and found a Silkie chick the other day. I have a hard time with Silkies too, so I was happy I got this little guy. I went into lockdown for a hatch that was due the 29th. Got the chicks to hatch, all but the favs, Bcms and SPPRs. Only had a couple of each in there but still. There was only one developed quail (My birds are still young and may need to add more roos). It DIS. BUT! I had missed eggs in both the LG and the Sportsman. Those eggs hatched! Two in each incubator.

Has anyone done just a straight beinging to end dry hatch and had success? This is the 3rd time this has happened.

I'm thinking about doing the next one completely dry to see what happens, but nothing seems to be happening with the 3 breeds of chickens I mentioned and that's killing me. Just seems the minute I add water lately I have problems and I've tried different humidities and nothing is different. These guys hatched out fine. I get shrink wrapped chicks when I do have problems, so what's up with that?

 

[pete55]

Hi Wolftracks

Here's a thread on incubation I did earlier which describes humidity and its relevance to DIS which may help you.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=491013

Also there are more incubation links on our website;

http://oakgarthgeese.com

Best of luck

Pete

 

[yinepu]

I think a lot of it depends on the relative humidity in your home.. Here it's extremely dry.. if I were to try a dry incubation I would have extremely large air cells halfway through.. and if I tried a dry hatch I would have nothing but shrink wrapped chicks..

So even though a dry incubation and hatch may work for some people.. I wouldn't expect it to be the norm.. some birds need higher humidity (ducks, turkeys at hatch come to mind).. for me it's not worth playing around with since i have excellent hatches on my own bird's eggs.. and overall pretty good results on shipped eggs

However if someone has been having problems with drowned chicks it may be something that they might want to look into

 

[wolftracks]

Quote:
That's the thing. I no longer get drownings. I do however sometimes have chicks that are mummified and this even happened before I ever did dry incubation. It doesn't matter what type of incubator I use either.

I'm just trying to figure out what's going to work best for my area and why I get chicks from eggs not locked down. Also need to find the exact humidity and technique for getting these 3 breeds to hatch out better.

 

[quintinp]

Well, I would bet that you already have quite a bit of information to get yourself going, but when I dry incubate I leave humidity at 30%, the first 18 days and 60& the last three. And on the 21st day The humidity goes up to 80% and I have been having good hatches so far.

 

[quintinp]

Quote:
I was wondering about what you said. I was thinking it would be because you didn't have a hygrometer, and if you put no water in your incubator than your incubator humidity would be REALLY low, and you would not be able to see the humidity. Because you didn't have a hygrometer? So what your really trying to say is that in your house you would need water in the incubator because the humidity would be to below 20-30%. Sorry, but is this what you mean?