Experimental Dehydrator Hatching - I'm doing it!

[Cornflower]

This is cool! I successfully hatched a chicken in a homemade incubator back in March. I only had one of 12 survive. I have since made adjustments and am currently on day 2 of my second try. Anyway I just wanted to reply so I can follow your thread. Good luck with your baby chicks.

Thank you and good luck on your chicks, too!

 

[Sally PB]

@Cornflower, this would make a great article!

 

[Cornflower]

I wonder if running a refill line from outside to the water tray would eliminate the need to open the unit. You could hook up one of those drink dispenser jugs, then run the line into the dehydrator if it has big enough ventilation holes. I don't know if the dehydrator has a see through door though, if it doesn't you'd have to guess how long to hold open the dispenser nozzle.
When I have my styrofoam incubator running, I take a long pipette and stick it in one of the two vent holes to inject water into the incubator and I keep a sponge directly under that hole. I've considered setting up what I described so I wouldn't have to manually squeeze the water in over and over. Of course, I have been using a very tiny pipette since it's all I had. Just a thought about the dehydrator and the humidity issue

Thanks. Yes I can see through the front door but its heavily tinted. I can see the digital Acu mometer (we're still getting to know each other). I shine a flashlight in for better visibility, but I would like that top-down view when they hatch.
I do have some old aquarium tubing in various sizes. While there are no ventilation round holes, there is ventilation around the door. The door is set to have space around it. I'm thinking I will be able to squeeze a tube in and run it where I want it for filling water.
I also accidentally overfilled the pan and got water all over the bottom. It didn't leak so I kept going. It has brought the humidity up to 40% steady!
These eggs shells are massively thick so I can't see into but 3 of them with candling. I attribute their small weigh loss to their thick shell. I think with the thinner shelled varieties this clutch would not have so much hope.
I've been trying to build the other incubator and, there's so many problems to be worked out, it looks like we're going into lockdown in the dehydrator in four days.
I'm throwing in the towel - literally. I'm going to throw a towel into the water pan and thread it up over a tray above the eggs to make a swamp cooler and bring that humidity up to full, hopefully. With the thickness of these eggs I can make a few "dry" run attempts.
Thank you for your suggestion. I've wondered if I could get away with that. There's dozens of ways to do things but few will work and getting feedback helps me decide.

 

[Cornflower]

Update! 6/2/2023
Yesterday afternoon I went off the deep end and took a big chance altering the food dehydrator in an effort to increase humidity in there; I used patches of Duct Tape and covered the intake holes to the heater fan and watched over it for the rest of the day and night like a hen sitting on her eggs. <bad joke>

It took me all this time to get the courage to try it as this incubator... er... dehydrator is a family heirloom. But! It is heated with electricity running through a circlet of springs (a heating element), the fan is forcing air across the heating element, and the temperature is controlled by a bi-metallic spring thermostat. All these are inside the unit.

The chicks will be safe in there when they hatch
There is a wire mesh separating these components from the compartment where the eggs will be hatching. The hatched chicks will not be able to contact the fan or heating element. They also can't fall off the tray as it extends fully to all sides. They will have room to move also.

Why I thought this alteration was safe to try
This stuff is important to note. I can see that restricting the fan air intake isn't going to stop airflow circulating across the elements. The fan will now draw the already heated air from inside back through the heat element. The thermostat will turn the element off when it gets above the set temperature. I know this because the fan isn't being shut on and off, so it must be the heating element is turned on and off. If the temperature was being controlled by turning the fan on and off or low to high speed, then I would not have tried to close the air circulation. I don't think any dehydrator or incubator would work this way.

This means that's there's a really good chance nothing is going to melt in there if I close of those air intakes.

And it worked! The back of the dehydrator near the heater coil even felt a little less hot, meaning the element is working less.

And the humidity increased to 50% !!!

I think I've turned this dehydrator into a true incubator.

I was up all night into and watched the sun come up this morning, further pecking at it. The eggs got turned all night also, which is a plus.

Covering the heater fan air intake vent with tape was easy
I can control the amount of humidity by covering more and less of the holes, so I have used patches of tape instead of one large piece. According to the Digital Accu>Rite, the humidity and temps are really steady. I'm still keeping that pan full and it's emptying out more slowly I think. I would only use a heat resistant tape like Duct Tape or Electrical Tape here as this metal backside of the unit gets warm and is closest to the heating element.

Adding wet washcloths didn't work so well.
I also tried just covering the ventilating gaps around the front door but leaving the bottom gap open. I also added wet washcloths to the floor. For the next 8 hours I experience large fluctuations in temperature and humidity and couldn't get it to settle at that wonderful 95 F/50% humidity. I had to take those washcloths out and got it to 95F/ 40% RH and could drop into bed finally.

When I'm rested a bit more I plan to try raising the relative humidity (RH) to 70% by closing all the fan vents.

Circulating the heat back under the unit to heat water pan
Currently I also have removed the tape around the door and have just plunked a dry towel along the bottom of the door (outside) to encourage the exhausted heat to flow back under the unit and maybe warm that water tray up from below. I will be working with this concept some more also.

Being careful about temperature as I experiment with live eggs
As I fiddle, I am being careful not to allow large fluctuations in temperature to continue for long. The temps have plummeted to 93F and rocketed to 108F, so I definitely keep my eye on it when I make a change.

The dehydrator seems ok!
After 12 hours the unit isn't straining or overheating with the fan vents covered, I currently have only half of them uncovered and getting 40% humidity, but have had all of them covered and got 70% and more. I will have to do it over again without the washcloths to see if I even need them to increase the RH by that much for the lockdown.

Preparing for lockdown in a few days
I'm going to be buying some aquatic carbon filter medium to have on hand. This will absorb carbon dioxide and will be useful if the lockdown requires extreme ventilation restrictions. This will keep the oxygen ratio higher in there. I also already have tubed filtered air I can split off my daughters Mexican Salamander Axolotl fish tank. This will allow me pump a steady stream of fresh air into the incubator.

I'll also buy a mini bubble stone for the end of the that air tube, to have on hand. Bubbling the water pan could help increase humidity if the system is having trouble doing that.

Summary
So this is my update today and I am open to changing my mind about using a Food Dehydrator as an incubator - it might be a very good idea. Although using wet washcloths to increase the RH made it hard to keep both temp and RH stable (they wildly fluctuated and I was adjusting the temp dial for hours last night!), these are some of the same complaints I'm reading in the reviews of purchased incubators. I am wondering if high humidity can affect a bi-metallic spring? I'll be combing the internet for those answers as well.

Additional Con - I have food I've been wanting to dehydrate, and can't yet. I'm glad I hurried up and got my apples, celery and carrots done before putting the eggs in!

Supply list so far:
In use:
- Excalibur Food dehydrator 1980s 5-shelf square model, front loading
- Acu>Rite Humidity Monitor (model 00325/00326/00327)
- Rechargeable AA Battery for the Accu>Rite
- 14 inch cake pan (just fits the bottom of the unit)
- Duct Tape

Plan on using:
- Aquarium bulk carbon filter medium
- Aquarium filter medium bag
- Aquarium air hoses, small diameter (to run three separate hoses for adding water through a crack in the door, for running fresh breathable air into the system, for bubbling air into the water pan to increase RH)
- Small aquarium bubble stone
- Rubber dish mat (so the hatched chicks have good footing and prevent splayed legs. The plastic canvas dehydrator tray might be too slippery for them)

 

[Sally PB]

When is hatch day?

 

[Cornflower]

Update 6/7 4:07 pm here Signs of Hatching with pictures
One of the eggs looks like she has begun to open her shell. In this photo you will see the red X. This part is another shell that was always stuck to the egg. The arrow shows her PIP, but she is just below the last air sac mark.

Number 11 might be going for it!

The next egg I think isn't going well. It looks more like the shell broke. The hole is nowhere near the air line. That might be some blood. I may have lost one

My log shows I had injected 1 TBSP water at 12:41am this morning with humidity level dropping to 69%. The next entry at 2am shows RH back to 70%. The with no further actions, the next entry at 10:46am shows RH at 78%, persisting through to noon, so I took the bubbler airline offline and switched to plain untreated air then. RH increased anyway, entry at 12;57pm (45 minutes later) still increased to 80%. An hour later still at 79%, and at 3:33pm still at 79%. So I slid the drawer out to see if the stubborn humidity was due to hatching and I just couldn't see from the front.

And yes there are some eggs opening in there.

I don't know what I should do about the broken egg. I don't want to unseal and break the humidity down for the chick that looks ok. I'm more willing to leave it alone, than try anything. If it needed emergency help, it probably needed it 6 hours ago and it's too late now.

There's 10 other eggs that still might give us good news!

I do appreciate advice on this. Does it look like it broke, or is she Pipping the wrong end? Should I try to get in or leave alone? Thanks in advance.

 

[Cornflower]

Congrats!
Is the plastic still over the box insert?

Thank you. Yes. I can open and close it and they are still sealed in, but I can slip my hand in and it doesn't lose much humidity according to the monitor. I got the two dry chicks out and they're in the warming box learning to drink and eat.

 

[fredwck]

@Cornflower when you mentioned "Eggs are losing weight a tad faster than schedule." like how much were you able to accelerate their weight loss? I had actually struggled to do this with a waterless incubator and might give a dehydrator a try, that's such a good idea.

I'm going to complete my other post about weight loss and humidity.

PS: I use that exact scale haha. I think I do need one with 1 decimal place for a nicer curve.