Dry Incubation... my experience...

[aran]

you guys rock! Cynthia, tell suede his babies will be trying the dry incubation method!
I had tried 3 sets of eggs...2 sets of silkies which had about 60% develop all the way to the last day only to die in the shells--> got 4 babies out of 20 eggs, and 5 babies hatched out of 9good buff laced polish eggs...the silkies with higher humidity and the polish with lower...i think the jury has reached their verdict at least in my limited experience.

Its off to re read the dry incubation thread again.

 

[beebiz]

Thanks for the graph jimnjay!! I'll try to use it to see whether or not my eggs are progressing properly.

Good luck with your eggs aron! I know I won't ever use any method other than the dry incubation method! Let us know how things go!

Robert

 

[aran]

so far so good mates...11/15 eggs are developing well at 4 days....4 of the remaining 5 have only been set since the night of 10/15 so still plenty of time for them to do their thing yet.

 

[aran]

oh yeh...the bator was at 35% humidity when i set the eggs and is now up to 45-48% with 15 eggs set...no water added at all..just the water evaporating out of the eggs has brought the humidity up 10-13%.

 

[beebiz]

Sounds great, aran!! I'll keep my fingers crossed that everything goes well for you! Keep us posted.

Robert

 

[marie_martin]

I was going to try some of the suggestions listed?? I put my eggs in and at the time the temp was 100 in my foam still air incubator and the humidity showed 40% with no water. Not sure how to get it any lower. Anyway, put in 36 eggs total (1/2 on Sat. the 13th and 1/2 on Mon. the 15th) and it went up to 50% and has stayed there since. I am on day 6 for the first set but the temp was a bit low for several days going down to about 99-100. So the first eggs are a bit slow I think. How would you get your room or your bator to have less humidity if there is no water? I tried putting my hygrometor in a baggie with damp salt and seeing what the humidity was and it was 62%. That means it is not calibrated right. I need to find that post that talked about that again. I don't know if I did it correctly. Anyway, I don't plan to add any water unless it gets to 25%. But it has been raining so probably wont happen? Good luck and keep us posted.

Marie

 

[beebiz]

Hey Marie,

From the way it sounds, I would think that the first thing you need to do is to get the hygrometer calibrated. Otherwise, it's really just a guess as to what the humidity is. When you get it calibrated you can recheck the humidity. If it is running exceptionally high, the only way that I know of to lower it is to put a dehumidifier in the room to remove some of the humidity.

Wednesday (10/17), I put 47 Buff eggs in my styrophoam Hovabator. It doesn't have a fan... yet! I can't afford a hygrometer yet, but I have fixed up a home made water weasel with a ziplock bag and water. I got the temp just right inside the weasel (99.5), then added the eggs. The weasel temp quickly dropped to 86.2. I left it alone over night and checked it again at 9:00 the next morning. The weasel temp never made it over 97.9. In an attempt to hit a weasel temp of 99.5, I made some slight adjustments to it during the day yesterday. Just before I went to bed last night, the weasel temp was 100.9, so I made another slight adjustment. This morning, the weasel was at 100.2. I'm hoping that today I can get it to even out at or very close to 99.5!

This is my first set using a water weasel. In the past, I've just always used a therm that was at egg height. Until I started using the weasel, I never realized just how big of an impact can be made on the inside temp of an egg simply by making a very small adjustment to the thermostat! The water weasel has definately made a permanent home for itself in my bag of hatching "tricks!!"

If I lived in a "normal" place, the purchase of a higrometer would definately be high on my list of things to purchase with my fixed income. But, I don't live in a "normal" place. My place sits down in a very low spot. Of the four sides around me, three of them slant toward my house at anywhere between 25 and 40 degree angles. The third side only slopes away from the house at somewhere around 2 or 3 degrees. In other words, it's like my house sits in a huge cereal bowl with only a baby sopoon sized drain. When it rains any measurable amount here, it takes several days for the visable water to run off of my place. So, after the storms and near floods that we had last night, I think that a lack of moisture for my eggs is that last thing I have to worry about. And, since I neither own or can afford a dehumidifier right now, I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed that the humidity doesn't get too high!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you have the best of luck with your eggs. Keep us posted as to how things go!

Robert

 

[marie_martin]

Well, I just looked up the calibration and it looks like I did not leave it long enough. I only left it about an hour. I just read you should leave it a while, like 8 hours. It got up to 62% in that hour. From 40% originally. So I think if I had left it, it would have gotten up further. I am going to try that again to be sure. I am going to candle this weekend and see how it is going. Will let you know.

Marie