Dry Hatch Or Normal Hatch?

[Farmer In Training]

Dry Hatch Or Normal Hatch?????? *HELP!*
Okay. So I have heard a lot about hatching and incubating, and I am going to start incubating my own chickens eggs after doing a fertile test with five and seeing that all five are fertile.

Anyways, I have a magicfly mini with automatic turner, (It can hold 12 eggs), and it is plastic. I have heard great reviews on it, but before I begin to incubate, I need help. Should I incubate the eggs dry or with the humitidy it reccomends? I think im going to do the water one, but is dry hatch better?

PLEASE HELLPPP!!! <3

~FarmerInTraining

 

[Abriana]

Welcome to BYC! Sorry, but I have always hatched under a broody so I can offer no more than a welcome @Farmer In Training! Good luck with your hatch!

 

[paneubert]

Depends on what it recommends. Some brands have some crazy recommendations. Humidity is really a personal choice and really regional and elevation related. It is really hard to have a solid number to recommend, but most folks will say somewhere between about 20-30% is good. Lower than that and you risk losing a lot of moisture from the eggs, more than that and you risk not losing enough. I personally stick to about 30%. I am about 200 feet above sea level, no AC in the house, and it has not rained in a long time. So my house humidity is around 30%. I do have to add water to keep my incubator around 30% since there is a fan that dries things out.

 

[Farmer In Training]

Depends on what it recommends. Some brands have some crazy recommendations. Humidity is really a personal choice and really regional and elevation related. It is really hard to have a solid number to recommend, but most folks will say somewhere between about 20-30% is good. Lower than that and you risk losing a lot of moisture from the eggs, more than that and you risk not losing enough. I personally stick to about 30%. I am about 200 feet above sea level, no AC in the house, and it has not rained in a long time. So my house humidity is around 30%. I do have to add water to keep my incubator around 30% since there is a fan that dries things out.

Thank you!

 

[Farmer In Training]

Does anyone else have any advice?

 

[susan threlkeld]

I'm new at this also and I've been advised many times to go with the dry hatch, and increase humidity the last 3 days. I tend to believe this, so on this batch of eggs I'm trying to go with 30% to 40%. It is nerve racking trying to get this just right. I don't want to drown, or shrink wrap. I think at this point "I am shrink wrapped myself" we had 40 bought eggs only 12 hatched several more that didn't have anything but liquid in them and 11 that were fully formed, and were dead (I opened each one to see) I don't know what happened at the end but it was disheartening to see those chicks get so far and then dying. I have read until I am blue in the face on everything you can read on this subject and the one thing that is consistent is lower humidity first 18 days, then at lock down, increase to between 60 to 70%. One thing I did read is that the first 3 days and the last 3 days will be most subject to failure. This is all I know, and I am new to this too (a broody hen is the answer to the whole thing)Hope this helps, good luck!

 

[aliciaplus3]

I am at around 6000 feet above sea level and my most successful hatch was done with 50% humidity for the first 18 days them bumping it to around 70% for lockdown. I believe that the eggs will make a difference too.... in my case I went with shipped eggs and they came from a lower elevation so the higher humidity was a good choice. I had previously tried a dry hatch with my own eggs and ended up with too many DIS

 

[susan threlkeld]

It has been very humid here in ga. this summer, but our house is air conditioned very well, so I don't know how to judge the incubator. All I have been relying on is what temp and humidity says on the incubator numbers, but this morning humidity said 31% and I put a damp sponge in the bator and it brought it up to 47%. my problem is not knowing when to go into lock down, because we took these eggs from the hen and we pretty much know when she went broody, but don't know when she stopped laying eggs and incubation actually started. Those last days are very important!

 

[Farmer In Training]

It has been very humid here in ga. this summer, but our house is air conditioned very well, so I don't know how to judge the incubator. All I have been relying on is what temp and humidity says on the incubator numbers, but this morning humidity said 31% and I put a damp sponge in the bator and it brought it up to 47%. my problem is not knowing when to go into lock down, because we took these eggs from the hen and we pretty much know when she went broody, but don't know when she stopped laying eggs and incubation actually started. Those last days are very important!

I honestly dont know how to help you except guessing off of candling.. Thank you for all your help though! And welcome to BYC!

 

[feedman77]

It has been very humid here in ga. this summer, but our house is air conditioned very well, so I don't know how to judge the incubator. All I have been relying on is what temp and humidity says on the incubator numbers, but this morning humidity said 31% and I put a damp sponge in the bator and it brought it up to 47%. my problem is not knowing when to go into lock down, because we took these eggs from the hen and we pretty much know when she went broody, but don't know when she stopped laying eggs and incubation actually started. Those last days are very important!

I incubate in a cabinet and had a couple of trays I put the wrong date on. When I went to move to my Hatcher they had already started hatching. So they didn't get any humidity raise at all. I incubate at 20 to 35 percent. They all hatched ok.

I would wait til you see a pip or hear them creeping then raise the humidity for them to hatch.

You should be just fine.