experienced chicken people advice - first hatch gone very bad

[jmoeller]

I am on day 10 of my first attempt to hatch chicken eggs. I think they are all dead and I am soo sad.
I had the temp stabilized for a few days before putting the eggs in. The eggs are from a local farmer, no shipping involved and about 24 hours old when I put them in incubator.
The first 8 days the temp would fluctuate in my homemade water wiggler from 98* to 100* I was using a reptile probe thermometer in a water wiggler. The temp would fluctuate as much as a degree with in a few minutes inside the water wiggler. That confused me because the temp in the incubator didn't change that much and I thought the water wiggler would change much slower than the outside temp.

Any way ~ Yesterday morning I got up and the water wiggler was at 95*. I turned the incubator up a little because I had to leave for work and I was afraid of turning it up to high and cooking them while I was gone. I called home a few times and had my son try things like laying a towel over the incubator to increase the temp, but the thermostat didn't seem to want to kick in. at 1:30 temp was still at 95* by the time my husband got home about 4:30 the water wiggler temp was 104*. he took the towels off and the water wiggler fell again to 95*. I have 3 other thermometers inside the incubator and the all showed temps in the mid 90's also.
I took the incubator apart dried off all the connections looked things over, couldn't find a definite problem said a prayer and put everything back together. about 11:00pm incubator temp was back to 100* & 102* ( 2 different thermometers) and water wiggler was on its way back up. This morning water wiggler 99.5* incubator temp 100 and 102.

I have a home made incubator made of 2 inch Styrofoam two 40 watt light bulbs, a computer fan (running continuously) and a thermostat ordered off line specifically for incubators and a lot of holes for air circulation.

Do I have any hope at all?? I am unbelievably sad about this. I have 20 expensive eggs coming in a few weeks and need to do this right. Buying an incubator is not to likely, as my husband would not be happy with a $130 purchase for 3 weeks of use. Is there such a thing as renting an incubator?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[lazy gardener]

How many holes do you have in the incubator? Your eggs may just be delayed. If the wiggler wasn't at 104 for very long, all may not be lost. What kind of thermostat do you have, and what is your humidity?

 

[SkylineFarms]

Lower temperatures are much, much better than high temperatures. Unfortunately, 104.9 degrees is the "zone of heat injury" so it is possible that the eggs may have been damaged by the temperature spike. I still would not give up on them, however.

This chart may help you out.
http://www.brinsea.com/customerservice/poweroff.html

"Within a range of 35 to 40.5°C (84.5 - 104.9°F) there is the possibility of eggs hatching." BUT it also states "Below 35°C (95°F) no embryo is likely to survive to hatch." So, according to Brinsea, 95-104.9 technically should be OK for them.

 

[mothersin2ition]

Im not a professional here (ive only hatched out a handful of times) but I read in Gail Damerow's book- Incubating and Hatching Eggs that they can survive up to like 107 in still air incubators, and I think it was 102-104 or somewhere in there in a forced-air incubator. I know someone here will probably jump in and give you the actual ranges for still/forced air bators, but to be honest, I would think that you should have at least some that make it. Have you candled since the temp flucuations? In any case, I hope you get it all straightened out before your expensive eggs get there. I know how frustrating it can be...I first made my own incubator exactly like yours and I couldnt ever get the temps stable so I just caved and bought a Little Giant. 4 years later and Im upgrading a bit to a Hova Bator. Hatching is addicting!

 

[jmoeller]

Lazy gardener ~ love the name by the way. I have 4 holes on each end that I am able to stick my finger through and 4 holes on each end about the diameter of a pencil. Humidity ranges 49% to 60% I am sorry I don't remember the name of the thermostat it is not a water heater thermostat. it was recommended specifically for incubators from the rush lane youtube video.
Skyline farms ~ I am mostly worried about the constant and rapid fluctuations. I have read a lot of people saying they have had large temp ranges and still been successful, that has giving me hope. But now I'm worried again.

mothersin2ition~I candled before the temp incident but didn't want to handle the eggs much last night because I figured they were stressed enough. When I candled them I couldn't really see anything that made sense to me. The are Australop and Americaunas eggs which are pretty dark. It seemed to me that about half the egg was darker and half was clearer which I assumed was the air sac. I'm not sure. I've looked at many pix on line that show what I should be seeing, but I'm not seeing it when I do my own. LOL
I can see how this can become addicting. It has taken me about 10 years to talk my husband into having chickens so I think I may need to restrain myself a little.
Thank you all for your help. This site is also addictive. I'm loving it.

 

[lazy gardener]

I think you have too much ventilation. I'd recommend that you plug some of those holes. Try ear plugs. How close is the thermostat to the light bulbs. Mine sits between the bulbs, with about 2" of space between the bulbs and the thermostat. I have a digital thermometer that reads to tenth of a degree, and have at most 1.5 degrees fluctuation between the time the thermostat kicks on and goes back off again. So, the goal is to have the thermostat kick on around 98.8, and kick off around 100.2. It cycles pretty quickly, so the eggs wouldn't have enough time to overheat or cool down before the next cycle begins.

Regarding your candling. You need a very bright flash light with NEW batteries. I have a 9 LED, and it does an adequate job. You'll need to be in a VERY dark room, and shine the light through the air cell. Some people are using 2 flashlights. They make a candler with a flash light inside a toilet paper tube, and set the egg on that, then use a second flashlight to illuminate from the other end.

 

[jmoeller]

Thanks Lazygardener. Sounds like my thermostat is just like yours. slightly above the light bulbs ( less than 1 inch) and in between the 2 bulbs about 2 inches from either bulb. I will close up some vent holes. I was trying to figure out how much ventilation to have but never could get a hard and fast answer, just that you need plenty of ventilation. I do have to lift the lid to turn the eggs but they are all on a tilting tray so it is really just a matter of reaching my hand in and pushing the tray one way or another, takes no more than 5 seconds. How many vent holes do you think are enough?

 

[lazy gardener]

Good question. Mine is certainly not vented much. There's a thumb sized hole in the top, and a couple of holes on the sides (3 or 4) where I shoved a pencil through (really high tech here, can you tell????) But, the cover is not very tight. I keep it wrapped in towels b/c the foam is thin. It will be interesting to see how this batch does, b/c there are a lot more of them. I may employ my pencil again when they start pipping. I'd love to see a manufactured foam incubator set up so I could compare the ventilation in that with mine.

 

[jmoeller]

lazy gardener. I believe the old ways are usually tried and true and high tech is over rated. I'd hate to tell you how much duct tape I have used on this incubator. LOL. A friend of mine is letting me use her incubator for my expensive eggs in a few weeks. She has hatched a few batches of ducks and it's a store bought one so it has a good track record. I'm not sure if it is a still air or fan. I am tempted to still put a few eggs from the next batch in my homemade incubator anyway just to see if I can get it to work well. It would be really cool if I could do it.
I blocked about 1/3 of the holes. There has been so many variables with this hatch. I don't know where I would start tweaking next time.

 

[lazy gardener]

After you get the eggs out of it, you can set it up and let it run for a week. Put some water bottles in it to equal the mass of the amount of eggs you'd incubate. A dozen large eggs weighs 24 ounces. That way, the incubator will function as though it was full of eggs. Then you can spend plenty of time tweaking it. I used my pencil quite a bit when I first set it up. Then, I added tin foil to direct the air flow. Kept adding a bit here and a bit there where it was too warm, and employed my pencil again on the tin foil where it needed to allow a bit more heat through. I'm really pleased with the way it's circulating now. Keep an eye on that thermostat when you increase the humidity. I'm not sure if the humidity has caused it to run higher, or if I was just doing too much micromanaging in the beginning. Most likely it was the micromanaging.