Faster and slower development question

[pinusresinosa]

It's day 5 for my first attempt at incubating eggs. I candled today. All of my eggs are developing! However, all of the eggs look like they're around day 4, with veining but still showing that vein-y circle. One egg though has veins that look like a typical day 6 or so I would say, with a visible eye spot.

I'm using a DIY incubator that I think is actually doing pretty well. I set it up three weeks ago and worked on regulating the temps where they should be and making sure my thermometer worked right and such. But the first day I set the eggs into the incubator I had fluctuations. The eggs never got too hot that first day, but they took a while to get up to temp, sitting around 85 I remember for a good part of the day that day. Other than that, I've been opening up the incubator to turn eggs three times daily and the temp will fall to 95-99 or so and come back up after an hour I close it back up.

Are these temps causing this development to differ so much? Will it harm my hatch?

Thank you for the help!

 

[pinusresinosa]

I've been keeping the temp at 102 at the tops of the eggs.

 

[lazy gardener]

Does your incubator have a fan and a thermostat? You can expect the temp to fall when you open it up. it's best to be aware of that before making temp adjustments. I tended to micromanage my thermostat last spring, and got into some wild swings because of it. You'll also see some temperature spikes as the chicks grow and their metabolism picks up, so be on the look out for that. I wish you the best with your hatch.

 

[pinusresinosa]

Does your incubator have a fan and a thermostat? You can expect the temp to fall when you open it up. it's best to be aware of that before making temp adjustments. I tended to micromanage my thermostat last spring, and got into some wild swings because of it. You'll also see some temperature spikes as the chicks grow and their metabolism picks up, so be on the look out for that. I wish you the best with your hatch.

It's got a thermometer and hygrometer. Not thermostatically controlled... I might invest in something that is that connects to the light/heat source, or just buy an incubator down the road that is. To make a thermostatic control that would work with the setup now hubs says would require a special like, coil or something, some circuitry, and some fun soldering. No fan either. I thought that not putting a fan in there would be ok maybe?

I read about making adjustments and I've been doing my best to not micromanage, although it might not be good enough. I am avoiding temp spikes though, I know that. I'm just worried about the dips if they're affecting anything, if that could actually be causing the differences in development. I could also be a little too overbearing and reading too much into what I'm seeing so far since this is only day 5. Also, eggs are mixed breeds, could that have an effect?

 

[lghrnlvr]

I built my own incubator. For a thermostat I used a switch out of a trashed electric heater. it has the wafer-thing in it. not sure what its called lol. I wired it into one of the wires going to the lightbulb and it works perfectly.
I live in a junkyard so I have stuff like that laying around. if your interested in something like that try your local dump or put an ad out on craigslist.
It was easier than using the hot water heater thermostat because it didn't require me to use any power tools to drill holes.

 

[pinusresinosa]

I built my own incubator. For a thermostat I used a switch out of a trashed electric heater. it has the wafer-thing in it. not sure what its called lol. I wired it into one of the wires going to the lightbulb and it works perfectly.
I live in a junkyard so I have stuff like that laying around. if your interested in something like that try your local dump or put an ad out on craigslist.
It was easier than using the hot water heater thermostat because it didn't require me to use any power tools to drill holes.

Interesting idea, worth some serious thought. I'll run this by my husband. I did put some stuff in my amazon shopping cart, like the all in one thermometer with a probe (I bought a cheap one from Walmart to begin with and ended up taking it out, it had to sit in the incubator and I didn't like it taking up so much room) and there's a device that can control a circuit thermostatically for under 20 bucks I read about here so that's in there too. Total will be about 35 bucks to get these two things which will help a lot.

I have one junk yard nearby that will take metal, maybe they've got some of the temp controls from old water heaters... I'll give them a call.