I have been rasing chicks for about a year now. I started at TSC with buying 6 cornish rock hens, 1 black cochin, 1 RIR, 1 siver bantam, 1 little feathery red bantam, and 3 red chicks of which im not sure what they are yet. We had a great time rasing them all and enjoyed eating our cornish rocks. Since i have gotten 10 more chicks including 6 Americanas, 1 RIR, 2 Barred Rocks, and 2 more of those reds that i cant figure out yet. I will take some pics to post and maybe all my new friends here at BYC can help me identify them!! Well in cleaning out my garage i found a bater from the previous home owner. Bater has a glass top and front, made out of wood and looks almost like this one: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=261876 The glass was broken so i made 2 trips to Lowe's because they didnt have anyone smart enough there to cut the glass square the first time! I put the bater back together and grabbed some eggs from the coop after getting the temp set to 99.5. I have not been so lucky with the humidity though. I can only get it to hover around 35%. I put the eggs in 3 on Dec 4 and 3 on Dec 5. All brown eggs that candled great and seemed to be coming along. My questions are: After about day 14-15 i could no longer see anything in the eggs when candling but the air sack and a mass. Is this good or bad? (just like day 15 -16 pics on the about link) Will the humidity only being around 35% hurt the hatch? How can i get the humidity to come up and stay? Last but not least, My only rooster is the Black Cochin and my only hens that are laying are 1 RIR, and 2 of the unidentified reds. What kind of chicks should i expect? Will they live? (I have heard alot of bad about mix breeding chickens) Thanks to anyone and everyone who has any info to help the 'NEW EGG' here at BYC
Hi, lucky you finding a bator! I only wish the previous owners of our house had left one! Although they did leave some other good stuff, like a couple of dog kennels. Anyways, on to your questions. It's perfectly normal not to see little parts of the chick any more when you candle...they get so big that there's no extra room. The humidity is fine for most of the incubation, but I would try to up it to around 60%. You can put some sponges in shallow water bowls to increase it. Don't panic if it doesn't go that high though. I regularly forget to move chicks from the incubator to the hatcher and they hatch just fine in the incubator (to which I never add water). You'll just have to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get stuck. Mixed breed chicks normally hatch just fine and they definitely live. The exception to this would be if the roo was a large breed and the hens were bantams...then sometimes the chicks grow too large for the eggs. That being said, I've successfully hatched chicks who had an EE for a daddy and a Silkie for a mother. I have 2 beautiful hens to show for it. Hope this helps. Good luck!
well, that's common, most of the egg has been filled with chick, but, check for movement and smell for sure, as long as it didn't smell bad just keep it. no, the humidity seem to be already good for the condition and don't forget to raise it at last three days. to make the humidity stable, put the bator in a quite protected place, not near any fan, window or air conditioner and rarely visited by people, like in corner or garage. to make humidity rise, put in a wet sponge or cloth being dripped by warm water. good luck and well you've already luck to have a *leftover* bator. beg your pardon if there's missspell or wrong word. edited to add :
thanks for the info!! Well i was told the black cochin roo was a bantam, but he is alot bigger than my other 2 bantams, yet smaller than all but 1 of the hens (hens are all regular size) Do you think the chicks that im trying to hatch will lay? What kind of eggs? As for the humidity, i have a small (4x8) plastic dish in the bottom by the air in vent hole that is half full of water. The only way i can seem to get the humidity to raise is to add hot water all the time. I dont do that though because i dont want a dramatic rise and fall in the humidity.
don't afraid of dramatic rise/fall humidity, that's quite problem to have to add hot water all the time, as long as the bator didn't have too many vents and it's placed in a *safe* place as i said and the *ambient*/house humidity didn't change too much, the humidity inside bator will quite stable. try cloth wet with warm water, the humidity will stay high as long as the cloth still wet and it last for hours. hot water will increase temp dramatically and will failed the incubation process i think. well, as long as the chick is female and she's ole enough she will lay egg, but i'm sorry since you've so many breed i can't predict it.
my bator has 2 holes for venting in it. 1 on the bottom left side and 1 on the top right side. Both have sliding covers and both holes are about 1/2 inch around. I have the bottom hole all the way open and the top hole about a quarter open. Also there is a slight gap in between the 2 pieces of glass. The temp stays right around 90-100. I did have 1 small spike to 102, and i small fall to 97 but other than that it has been really steady. Would this style bator be considered still air? if so should i raise the temp on my next try?
i just *mark* the title of your post, your question is for expert, but i'm not an expert, i'm just trying to help. i hope you didn't disappointed. yes, that's a still air bator since it doesn't have a fan. a still air bator is a bator without fan. a bator with fan is a forced-air bator. yes, the temp should be a little bit higher, around 100-102 because we want the temp of the top of the egg is at around 100F. it seem that you've 2 thermohygro, that's good because you can compare them. the air circulation is good since you have enough vents. wow, i just shocked when see the bator is made almost all from glass, you'll have a full view of hatch when the egg hatched and since you can afford stable temp, it's really great. don't worry about that little temp fluctuation, mine is hanging from about 80F to 110F with 2 times power outages/day plus CO2 supply and i have 30% rate. i'm wishing you a good luck.
