Dry Hatching vs Regular Hatching

[Obsessed With Silkies]

Hi everyone! I'm going to be doing alot of incubating down the road on silkie eggs and I heard that dry hatching silkie eggs can be better than regular hatching? I would like to know if this is correct. If so how does it work? I want to be able to have the best hatch rates possible. Thanks in advance!

 

[NatJ]

I'm going to be doing alot of incubating down the road on silkie eggs and I heard that dry hatching silkie eggs can be better than regular hatching? I would like to know if this is correct. If so how does it work? I want to be able to have the best hatch rates possible.

Whether it is "better" probably depends on your climate.

Dry hatching usually means not adding water to the incubator while the eggs are in there (most people still do add water the last 3 days or so, when the chicks are actually hatching.)

How it works:

Water evaporates from the eggs as they are developing.
It evaporates faster or slower according to how much water is already in the air (how humid it is inside the incubator.)
The eggs need to lose the right amount of water during incubation, so the air cell is the right size at hatching time.

In dry places, people need to add water to the incubator, so the air inside will become more humid, to get the right level.
In places that are naturally humid, people more often have success with "dry" hatching (no water added to the incubator), because the air is already humid enough.

Chicks typically need a higher humidity when they are actually hatching, so most people add water at that point no matter whether they left it "dry" during the rest of the time or not.

To figure out what will work best for you:
I suggest you set up the incubator, plug it in and turn it on with no eggs, and measure what temperature and humidity level it has. If the humidity is right, or almost right, try incubating eggs with no added water. If the humidity is way too low, you will need to add water. If the humidity is too high, you may need to run a dehumidifier in the room with the incubator (yes, some people do need to do this.)

If you are going to do a lot of hatching, try one way and see what hatch rate you get. If you like the hatch rate, keep doing it that way. If the hatch rate is bad, try changing something, and see if the next batch does better. (A "bad" hatch rate can be caused by many things, so think about why it was bad when you are deciding what to change.)

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Above advice is good! It depends on your climate. When I get around to getting an incubator I will in fact have to run it dry AND in a room with a dehumidifier in order to get them to hatch, due to my climactic humidity being in the high 70s - 90s most of the time.