Egg surface temperature

[nbuuifx]

I only hatch once a year with an Brinsea Octagon 20 eco on an automatic turner.

Unfortunately with only hatching once a year, I forget things!

Now last year I was having a bit of a play with the temperature as there is the age old problem of "which thermometer do you trust?". I just can't quite remember what I decided and if it was right

The built in glass thermometer is currently set to 37.6*C
I also have a cheap hygrometer in there which does seem to give me an idea of when the humidity is high or low and seems to react correctly to opening and closing of the vent or topping up water. However this also has a thermometer as part of it and that says 32*C.

I also tried an electronic ear thermometer to test the surface temperature of the eggs. This was showing at 35*C

Now on the last hatch I turned the temperature up a bit so that the in built thermometer showed 38.5*C - I had 11 out of 18 hatch (can't remember how many weren't viable)

I put 14 hen eggs in yesterday - so they have had 24 hours to get stable. From all the above do you think I should turn it up a little again? I think from memory I was going off some advice that they were taking a little on the long side to develop (more like 22 days).

 

[MGG]

I only hatch once a year with an Brinsea Octagon 20 eco on an automatic turner.

Unfortunately with only hatching once a year, I forget things!

Now last year I was having a bit of a play with the temperature as there is the age old problem of "which thermometer do you trust?". I just can't quite remember what I decided and if it was right

The built in glass thermometer is currently set to 37.6*C
I also have a cheap hygrometer in there which does seem to give me an idea of when the humidity is high or low and seems to react correctly to opening and closing of the vent or topping up water. However this also has a thermometer as part of it and that says 32*C.

I also tried an electronic ear thermometer to test the surface temperature of the eggs. This was showing at 35*C

Now on the last hatch I turned the temperature up a bit so that the in built thermometer showed 38.5*C - I had 11 out of 18 hatch (can't remember how many weren't viable)

I put 14 hen eggs in yesterday - so they have had 24 hours to get stable. From all the above do you think I should turn it up a little again? I think from memory I was going off some advice that they were taking a little on the long side to develop (more like 22 days).

You need to calibrate your thermometers.

 

[nbuuifx]

I've just tried the ice water calibration. Slightly tricky as the thermometer only has a range of 25 to 40*C

However I worked out were 0 should be given the distance of the marks. I used calipers and marked zero. When putting it in the ice water it was coming out at about 3mm higher than expected. So I made a mark on the thermometer 3mm higher than 37.5*C. I've now adjusted the temperature to this point.

How accurate this is I don't know, as the ice water calibration assumes that it is perfectly linear but I haven't got anything better. Coincidentally the temperature is back to where I ended up with it last time through trial and error.

Hopefully it won't matter too much that day 0 and day 1 were probably about 1*C too cool.

 

[MGG]

I've just tried the ice water calibration. Slightly tricky as the thermometer only has a range of 25 to 40*C

However I worked out were 0 should be given the distance of the marks. I used calipers and marked zero. When putting it in the ice water it was coming out at about 3mm higher than expected. So I made a mark on the thermometer 3mm higher than 37.5*C. I've now adjusted the temperature to this point.

How accurate this is I don't know, as the ice water calibration assumes that it is perfectly linear but I haven't got anything better. Coincidentally the temperature is back to where I ended up with it last time through trial and error.

Hopefully it won't matter too much that day 0 and day 1 were probably about 1*C too cool.

I'm glad you calibrated it. Hopefully you'll have better luck this hatch.