Experimental Dehydrator Hatching - I'm doing it!

[Cornflower]

Wow, that's this Sunday! Watching and waiting!

Thursday the 8th. Only two days away!

 

[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]

The "broken" egg (is #4) is moving, and ripping that membrane a little more. There's a dab of fresh blood. Maybe she's not bleeding too bad and will still be able to pip out. I'm standing by with 10% povidone iodine solution, gauze and more duct tape in case it becomes apparent that a supportive patch over that hole will be a benefit.

Meanwhile... # 10 has just begun to pip!

 

[Sally PB]

So exciting!

 

[BastyPutt]

May 18th, 2023 I plunked 15 eggs into a dehydrator to see if they'll hatch.
I had commented on another post about this and I don't want to put my updates there. But there
are updates to tell!

Today is day 8, as of midnight May 26. Early this morning I candled some of them and saw... Oh man! I saw something
moving around! Two round shadows dancing and veins. The heart?

They're brown eggs so only the lightest and thinnest, 3 of the eggs, was I able to see into. Some of
these eggs have really thick shells and I don't know if I'll ever be able to see into them. But it was
exciting!

I got a free spreadsheet from a website and have been using that to track the weight loss. They are
1.2% underweight so far. I had traded a smaller bowl of water in on day 2 thinking that it was too
much humidity to use my really big cake pan. But seeing the loss of an 'nth of a gram I put the cake
pan back in. And I bought a digital temperature/humidity device and can see that the humidity is
now 21%. Pretty low.

The dehydrator is keeping a steady 97 deg F. I'm building a hatchery out of a large Styrofoam
cooler because the humidity wanted for hatching day is going to be about 70%.

My idea for doing this is because my old 1980's Excalibur dehydrator could fit four dozen eggs
or more. My friend is planning on doing large hatches, probably for broilers. I thought I could have
the pleasure of taking a bunch of that work off his hands. I don't think the dehydrator is going to
give us the hatch rate we want and that's not preferable if the eggs are valuable.

But the thing is working so far! A food dehydrator might be possible as a temporary back up incubator.
It has no heat mass, and holds the temp steady once you get it set. I didn't need to run it for 24 hours
before adding eggs, because once you turn it on it's instantly at temp. So if I had an incubator breakdown
I wouldn't hesitate to put eggs in there while waiting for the replacement to arrive.

PROS:
-This was cheap. I already had this, and old dehydrators can probably be picked up at garage sales.
-There was nothing else I really needed but a thermometer to dial in the heat, and pan for water.
-Comes to temperature immediately. Aside from your time adjusting the temp, the inside gets to temp
and holds very fast. No waiting for warm up.
-Would work as a temporary back up as long as you can get them into something better before Lockdown.


CONS:
-I don't recommend using it after lockdown.
-My pan barely keeps all the water in it for 48 hours.
-There isn't a way to refill the pan without opening the unit up.
-Lockdown needs 70% humidity and that's not going to happen in a sustainable way.
-I can't see into it very well, the drawer design doesn't give me a top down view.
-It's loud. I haven't enjoyed having that fan run constantly the past 8 days. I'm sure the chicks would be born with
tinnitus or deaf.
-It's making it hot in the house.
-Not what you'd use if you want a high hatch rate.
-Eggs are losing weight a tad faster than schedule.

This is wild!

 

[Cornflower]

#4 the "broken" egg is sticking her beak through the hole. I shut the dehydrator motor off for a minute and heard a "peep". She looks like she just rolled down a window and stuck her head out to say, "Hi!". I'm glad I didn't try to patch the hole!
#2 has pipped. #10 looks like it's taken some new dents.

 

[SmiYa0126]

Can't wait to see the babies!

 

[twochixchickens]

Nice experiment you have going.

Something that helped me with my incubators and my brooders...
I used Rainpoint plant waterers to keep my incubator reservoirs full. I used a Govee temp/humidity gauge inside the incubator. That uses and app, so I could set warning levels for temp and humidity levels and determine if I need to add water, right from my phone. If I needed to add water, the Rainpoint waterers used an app as well, so I could just go to the app, turn it on and turn it off when there was enough water. Again, all of this right from my phone.
I also used this same waterer for my 4 brooders. For the brooders, I set the waterer on a timer to turn on every hour for 2 minutes. This way my chicks always had water. I also used the little Blink cameras in each brooder so I could keep an eye on the chicks and their water levels.
Made things sooo much easier.
I said all this to say the waterer could be useful to you to keep the water pan full without having to open the door. It uses the really narrow aquarium tubing and even the unit itself is small. The app even tells you when the water it is pumping from is empty.

Good luck tonight an tomorrow!

 

[Cornflower]

Nice experiment you have going.

Something that helped me with my incubators and my brooders...
I used Rainpoint plant waterers to keep my incubator reservoirs full. I used a Govee temp/humidity gauge inside the incubator. That uses and app, so I could set warning levels for temp and humidity levels and determine if I need to add water, right from my phone. If I needed to add water, the Rainpoint waterers used an app as well, so I could just go to the app, turn it on and turn it off when there was enough water. Again, all of this right from my phone.
I also used this same waterer for my 4 brooders. For the brooders, I set the waterer on a timer to turn on every hour for 2 minutes. This way my chicks always had water. I also used the little Blink cameras in each brooder so I could keep an eye on the chicks and their water levels.
Made things sooo much easier.
I said all this to say the waterer could be useful to you to keep the water pan full without having to open the door. It uses the really narrow aquarium tubing and even the unit itself is small. The app even tells you when the water it is pumping from is empty.

Good luck tonight an tomorrow!

Thanks twochixchickens. I don't have a phone, but I'll be building a larger and better incubator. My current design hatching box i've moved them into doesn't have a water pan. I'm watering the carbon on the floor. But those are some neat gadgets I definitely would like to try on the next build out. I hear chirping! Gotta go. The first chirps just now! 10:12 pm

 

[Cornflower]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=980491106709753