Dry Incubation

[ronben]

Hi Just came a member of this forum, with my first few tries at incubating I was felling I was a chicken killer eg:- 1st 42 eggs 3 chicks and many chicks failing to hatch fully formed, 2nd 42 eggs 6 hatched and the same many failing to hatch fully formed, 3rd go 9 hatched and the same many fully formed chicks failing to hatch, I was really felling like a chicken killer, I had been cutting back on water each time and as you can see things were improving a little each time, then I was told about Dry Incubation By Bill Worrell I am doing it this way and to his instruction and so fare I haven't put a drop of water in my bater this is day 9 and the humidity has been averaging 40% and every thing looks great. But the main reason I am posting this is I have a question Bill Worrell says to use a well balanced diet to your birds including Kelp, and D.E. as a de-wormer. I also recommend that you supply dried garlic to help with overall health. Does any one know what amount of Kelp, DE and Dried Garlic to use?
I will post the finale count after this hatching, Hatch due on 21/2.
Thanking you Ron

 

[jerryn]

Ronben, I have 48 eggs that I set the 2nd of Feb, using an old GQF 1202 incubator that I gave $5.00 for at a farm auction. Had to replace the element,1 switch and one wafer. But it's up and running.
This is my first attempt at incubating, I've used setting hens years ago to hatch a few chicks. I read that artical about dry incubation also. And it has me wondering about getting to much humidity going. Mines been running about 45-- 50 percent. In fact I took the waterpan out an hour ago and thought I'd see later this morning what the humidity is. will probably have to put it back as out side humidity is not very high. Reading everything I can find on this incubating thing, and my take so far, is late humidity ," to keep chicks from drying to the shell" is probably more important than early humidity.
I saw some pictures some place that show how large the air sack at the end of the egg should be at certain stages, and I think alot of that is determined by humidity. In other words to much moisture, not enough air?
I hope an expert or 2 will step in and help here, --Please notice I'm a New Egg to this.
Looks like your eggs should hatch a day ahead of mine. Lets stay in touch.

 

[Chipper]

Humidity during early incubation is very important.To much and the moisture in the egg will not evaporate,leaving a small air cell.
To little and the egg will lose to much moisture,creating a large air cell.

Either one of these conditions has the potential of killing the chicks inside the egg.

If you have not already done so,check out this discussion on humidity.Lots of great information that will help you a great deal.

Good Luck with your hatches and welcome to BYC.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=113681

 

[ronben]

Quote:
Hi jerryn, I would love Bill Worrell to get involved in this posting as I think he would be a wealth of info for us new starters. I see you are in the US my wife comes from the US but has been in Australia since she was 5 years old, we live on the east coast of Australia.
I would say that at day 18 I will have to put a small amount of water in the bator to bring the humidity up to 60-65%,the room down below our house my workshop where the bator is running at 70/75% humidity and that is keeping my bator very steady temp and humidity.
My main breading is Pekin Bantams, but I have big eggs (ISA browns) till I sort it all out.
Will keep updates as things progress with the hatch.
Ron

 

[onthespot]

I think dry incubating only works where it really isn't very dry. I live in southern California, and sometimes the relative humidity can drop to 6% even. There is NO WAY that that can be good for eggs, so for me, need to closely monitor humidity and add water. However, there are a lot of people who live in areas where the relative humidity stays in a range that is conducive for incubating. You hear of people who incubated in a paper sack with a night light and it worked! They think they are geniuses because they can do something with nothing. Bring that same paper sack to Arizona in the summertime and you will get nothing but quitters. Each person has a learning curve that is particular to their area and local weather conditions. After they got really good at it, if they moved somewhere with a different climate, they would suddenly be a beginner again, hopefully with a shorter, steeper learning curve, but still they would have to scramble and figure out what worked for them in their new home.

 

[1mommahen]

Quote:
Couldn't have said it better myself!!!

 

[BirdBrain]

I hear you on that!! We moved from humid Houston to arid Anchorage. I am running a humidifier in the closet where my bator is just to keep the room humidity at 40%. The bator humidity stays at about 30-40 this way. I have water in one of the trays. For days 18-22 I will have to runn another humidifier and add water to the second tray as well as possibly add some sponges to get the humidity to stay at 60-70 in the bator.

Edited to add: to help me better understand incubation in this new place, I weighed each egg on my digital gram scale before setting. I have weighed them at seven days and will again at day 14 and 18. The eggs are supposed to lose from 11-14% of their weight due to evaporation. I went to my Excell spread sheet and figured out what an 11-14% range would be for each egg as well as what percentage they lost by day seven. So far they have lost between 2-4.75% depending on the egg. They have all lost between 1-3 grams. I am wondering how the variation of egg sizes affects this. The largest egg is 66 grams and the smallest 48 grams. I read somwherethat you could weigh the whole rack of eggs to help you track weight loss but couldn't see how that would be accurite if you were tossing clears and quitters at day 7 so that is how I ended up tracking all this in such detail.

 

[IggiMom]

I agree with Onthespot--I am in West Virginia. It can be humid here in the summer, but at this time of year, while I am heating, the humidity is low, and I watched my humidity in the incubator like a hawk.

I do need to add water, and I also keep the room the incubator is in as humid as I can with a steamer and a little artificial waterfall, and all my little bowls of Siamese Fighting Fish. And plants.

Catherine

 

[onthespot]

Smaller eggs do lose moisture faster due to a larger surface to mass ratio. Also marans eggs and other darker pigmented eggs, olive eggs, dark brown eggs can lose more slowly and need drier conditions. Mine do better around 30% than at 45 or 50%

30% for bantam cochins is too dry. The air cell gets too big and they can stick to the inside of the shell.

 

[BirdBrain]

Thanks for that. I know (thanks to PaulaJoAnne) who laid each egg So it will be interesting to see how the variables if size and pigment affect the hatch.