DRY INCUBATION and AIR SAC MONITORING!?!?

[laceyyates]

As long as your thermometers and hygrometers are accurate, those numbers look good. Just keep an eye on the air cells. Yes, day 7/14/18 are the key days to measure. I use the dry method prefering 30% for the first 17 days and running 75+ for lockdown/hatch. I am a hands on hatcher so I keep my humidity high at hatch. Shipped air cells can be tricky because they are harder to judge. I would judge size based on the non shipped. I use this method quite successfully: http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity it has the egg chart and pertinent info.

My overall hatch method is: http://hatching411.weebly.com/ prefering a more hands on philosophy. Good luck on your hatch!

Oh and a good candling thread is: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...g-candling-pics-progression-though-incubation
I am a candling addict. I candle most evenings. There is so much to learn through experience and seeing these things for yourself.

Thank you for your response! So helpful!

 

[laceyyates]

You all are great! Definitely giving me more confidence! And those article links...JUST what I needed! Update on my eggs - all the eggs that I received local are doing good. Their air sacs seem good. My shipped eggs...some are a little wonky for sure. I'm just going to leave them and hope for the best! Hoping for development!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

You all are great! Definitely giving me more confidence! And those article links...JUST what I needed! Update on my eggs - all the eggs that I received local are doing good. Their air sacs seem good. My shipped eggs...some are a little wonky for sure. I'm just going to leave them and hope for the best! Hoping for development!

Good luck!! Keep us updated!

 

[BlessedCountry6]

Hello , thanks for posting! - and congrats on your new chicks/poults :yiipchick

I can hardly wait to do the first candling, something has to hatch! .... I'm losing sleep checking on my numbers at night!

Until the first candling, I keep sniffing around the edges of my bator to make sure nothing's rank

Thank you! The hardest part was waiting! It seemed so slow. The first candling I didn't see much. My chicken eggs were so dark I really couldn't see much the whole time. The turkeys take longer so it took longer to see things that I had looked at in candle photos I have seen online. It might also be because I really didn't know what I was looking at. Maybe the next hatch I will see things sooner.
Once I started to see the veins it was beyond exciting.
At one point I didn't check on my eggs for a few days. I walked into the room and boom the smell hit me in the face. It was easy to smell and find the bad eggs. I got rid of them and the room smelt better much quicker than I thought it would.

 

[BlessedCountry6]

LOL, IKR?! I can't get away from it long enough to get anything significant accomplished around here! And we have company coming next week We'll do this together

AmyLynn, thank you for the links, I've read through all of them at least once - even before I got the eggs Very good stuff....I think you're right about candling too, the experience will sharpen the skill and you learn to interpret what you see....




Chocolate turkeys! That sounds like something you'd have in an Easter basket! I bet they're beautiful.....just think, turkeys were almost our national emblem!

They do sound delicious and they are but they don't have a hint of chocolate in the meat. Lol

Candling was by far the funnest part. I learned a ton and my kids did too.

If I would have cracked open all the eggs when the first one hatched I would have had 4 more turkeys and a duck most likely. I wasn't sure and what I read said to wait. The eggs were bouncing and peeping. It made me so sad when the next morning I lost them. It's unfortunate but a huge lesson learned. Also my humidity wasn't high enough the last few days. (They hatched early. Idk what happened but they were 4 days early.)
It was sad but I still got 7 live birds.

Hope that sheds some hope. I messed up big time and still got love birds out of a very dry hatch. Now that I'm typing this I did unplug my incubator some of the times I candles. I wonder if that threw off the count on the display.
I'm excited to see how others do with their hatch!

 

[BlessedCountry6]

You all are great!  Definitely giving me more confidence!  And those article links...JUST what I needed!  Update on my eggs - all the eggs that I received local are doing good.  Their air sacs seem good.  My shipped eggs...some are a little wonky for sure.  I'm just going to leave them and hope for the best!  Hoping for development!   

Hoping for the best for your shipped eggs!

 

[BlessedCountry6]

I like to remind people that the "experts" didn't get to be "experts" by setting them and forgetting them. You gain experience not just by research and following advice but by doing and experiencing.  You can't know what is normal if you don't see it firsthand!

I'm an aircraft mechanic by trade and the same principals apply ..... and with my ewes too, I've delivered a few lambs.... you learn by doing, so here we go!

I agree!

 

[n8ivetxn]

Well, I couldn't resist - It's day 6 and I randomly candled (very gently, with warm hands!) about 6 eggs....and 2 of them definitely had veins and little embryos pulsing in there

I got excited and forgot exactly how many I did

, I think it was 6, but the others, I couldn't really tell much about them. 2 of them looked like they had a dark mass and the other 2 sort of just looked clear.... However, none of them stink - yet!

 

[laceyyates]

SOMEONE please tell me I didn't mess up my hatch?!? I decided to candle this am as I am going to be more of a hands on hatcher. I put eggs in at 7 am on the Sep 10th. I did have a few I could see veins in already! (One that was developing was from a shipped egg with a really wonky air sac, too!) ANYWAYS - my humidity had been holding at a consistent 23-25% but noticed this am that it had dropped to the teens BEFORE I opened the lid. So, after I was done candling, I put a couple teaspoons of water in and HOLY HUMIDITY! It jumped to 53% then 60%! CRAP - what do I do? Did I mess up medling? Should I just have left it alone since I'm doing the dry hatch method? Where do I go from here?!?

Aaahhhh

 

[AmyLynn2374]

They do sound delicious and they are but they don't have a hint of chocolate in the meat. Lol

Candling was by far the funnest part. I learned a ton and my kids did too.

If I would have cracked open all the eggs when the first one hatched I would have had 4 more turkeys and a duck most likely. I wasn't sure and what I read said to wait. The eggs were bouncing and peeping. It made me so sad when the next morning I lost them. It's unfortunate but a huge lesson learned. Also my humidity wasn't high enough the last few days. (They hatched early. Idk what happened but they were 4 days early.)
It was sad but I still got 7 live birds.

Hope that sheds some hope. I messed up big time and still got love birds out of a very dry hatch. Now that I'm typing this I did unplug my incubator some of the times I candles. I wonder if that threw off the count on the display.
I'm excited to see how others do with their hatch!

Can I ask why you unplug it while you candle?

SOMEONE please tell me I didn't mess up my hatch?!? I decided to candle this am as I am going to be more of a hands on hatcher. I put eggs in at 7 am on the Sep 10th. I did have a few I could see veins in already! (One that was developing was from a shipped egg with a really wonky air sac, too!) ANYWAYS - my humidity had been holding at a consistent 23-25% but noticed this am that it had dropped to the teens BEFORE I opened the lid. So, after I was done candling, I put a couple teaspoons of water in and HOLY HUMIDITY! It jumped to 53% then 60%! CRAP - what do I do? Did I mess up medling? Should I just have left it alone since I'm doing the dry hatch method? Where do I go from here?!?

Aaahhhh

You can relax and breath. Dips and spikes in humidity does not compromise the chicks. Humidity is important, yes, but as an average. It's not like temps where a drastic spike can kill them right there. With humidity you have lots of area to play with. The importance of humidity is that it allows the eggs too loose enough moisture over the period of incubation. I don't like my humidity dropping down into the teens either. I only run dry normally if I can keep it up around 25%, I prefer 30%, but as long as it does't drop into the teens or stay below 25% for days, I don't freak out. Now, if I need to add a little moisture to get my humidity up out of the teens, I add a wet sponge. Just one kitchen sized wet sponge. I don't ever put water in my wells for the first 17 days. Even a small amount of water in the wells in going to spread out and increase the water surface. Some people use like a top of a pill bottle, something small so the surface area stays small. I find the sponge works perfect for me I. I also add sponges at lockdown after filling the wells. It helps me get that high humidity and since my sponges are placed at egg level it makes it easier to rewet the sponges and add them back in when I need to refresh the moisture instad of fighting to get to the wells.