First incubation ever! Help me get it right!

[Weeg]

Hey guys! I know this is my third incubation thread, but I thought I would make a separate one now that the eggs are in the bator, so each thread is a little different lol!
I go the eggs from a friend who was so excited she started try gin to incubate them with a bowl, towel, sponge, and heating pad. She did that 4 days ago. A few days after that, she got an actual incubator, and put them in that. I candled them today, 4 days after the heating pad and the bator, and I don't see any signs of live embryos. The yolks are normal, no veins, nothing. The air cells do seem bigger, but not by much. I know its still a little early, so i'm not to concerned yet, but I definelty don't think the heating pad did anything for them, so should I could the day they went into the incubator as day one or??
If you have seen my last thread, I killed my separate humidity/tempature gauge trying to calibrate it, (I got water in the cracks) so I have another one coming today. It will be here this afternoon. I have my aquarium thermometer in there now, as a backup.

Questions-
How do I keep my humidity stable? It seems like its either to high, or to low, I can't seem to keep it at 48%. I am trying a half cup filled with water, a little wider then the 1/4 cup I had earlier, which kept the humidity to low. I'm try gin to see who much I need to up the surface area.

Who often is it safe to candle?

When should I decide that the eggs in the bator that I see no progress from are infertile?

Is it okay if some of the eggs were put in a few days apart? She's been adding eggs to the bator as they were laid, so some are 2-3 days apart. At least two are planned to hatch on the same day though, so none will hatch alone.

Any other tips you want to share, please do! I really don't want to mess this up, so all the info I can get! Thanks guys!

 

[Weeg]

Other info-

I'm hatching in a Little Giant forced air incubator. Trying to keep humidity at 48% and temp at 99.5. Is it a big deal if the temp is low or high by a few point degrees from time to time? Like 99.3 or 99.8?

 

[MGG]

Hey there!
Let me read through quick.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

I'm going to have to agree that the initial heating pad incubation period may not have provided the conditions needed for incubation to proceed normally (if at all), so using a resource like this article to assess development should be more accurate when used at candling than trying to assign a start date right away.

Re humidity: using something to wick moisture, like a paper towel or a small piece of sponge wet may help stabilize it. I like to use a medical squeeze bottle with clear tubing attached to re-wet sponges without opening the incubator (particularly useful during lockdown). Some fluctuation will occur - as it likely would under a broody - so I aim for an average humidity % without extreme highs or lows for too long.

Candling: I prefer to do it weekly at 7 days, 14 days (and sometimes right before lockdown if needed). I find that this schedule is often enough to identify whether development is occurring on track (or if temperature adjustments are needed), if air cells are growing appropriately (or if humidity adjustments are needed), or if there are clears or quitters that need to be pulled while minimizing the risks of damaging eggs while handling, causing temperature and humidity drops from opening the incubator, or simply driving yourself batty by checking too often when change may not be noticeable. In your case, however, you may need to candle more often because it's not clear where the eggs are developmentally due to the initial conditions.

Making the call: with normal incubation, it's usually apparent by 7 days if the eggs aren't developing and I remove those then. You should be able to tell after 7 days of stable, generally appropriate incubation conditions, so if you don't see development within a week of adding them to your incubator, they're probably not going to develop. If you're seeing possible development, you could leave them for longer (with the risk that they could be going bad). My guess is that it'll be clear what's happening within a week, though.

Eggs set days apart: a staggered hatch means that eggs that aren't quite ready will go into lockdown with eggs that are (assuming you won't be using a separate hatcher). In that case, I'd minimize the changes during lockdown so all of the eggs have the best chance of hatching, like not cranking the humidity up to 70% right away (I wait until I see the first pip). With a few days' spread, you could have chicks that hatch several days after the first, so you'll want to be prepared to move older chicks that are dry into a prepared brooder within a couple of days of hatch so they can eat and drink (and also not kick the later-hatching eggs around).

Other advice: read the incubation articles in the Learning Center, including @Pyxis's comprehensive Guide To Assisted Hatching For All Poultry. Best of luck and have fun!

 

[Weeg]

I'm going to have to agree that the initial heating pad incubation period may not have provided the conditions needed for incubation to proceed normally (if at all), so using a resource like this article to assess development should be more accurate when used at candling than trying to assign a start date right away.

Re humidity: using something to wick moisture, like a paper towel or a small piece of sponge wet may help stabilize it. I like to use a medical squeeze bottle with clear tubing attached to re-wet sponges without opening the incubator (particularly useful during lockdown). Some fluctuation will occur - as it likely would under a broody - so I aim for an average humidity % without extreme highs or lows for too long.

Candling: I prefer to do it weekly at 7 days, 14 days (and sometimes right before lockdown if needed). I find that this schedule is often enough to identify whether development is occurring on track (or if temperature adjustments are needed), if air cells are growing appropriately (or if humidity adjustments are needed), or if there are clears or quitters that need to be pulled while minimizing the risks of damaging eggs while handling, causing temperature and humidity drops from opening the incubator, or simply driving yourself batty by checking too often when change may not be noticeable. In your case, however, you may need to candle more often because it's not clear where the eggs are developmentally due to the initial conditions.

Making the call: with normal incubation, it's usually apparent by 7 days if the eggs aren't developing and I remove those then. You should be able to tell after 7 days of stable, generally appropriate incubation conditions, so if you don't see development within a week of adding them to your incubator, they're probably not going to develop. If you're seeing possible development, you could leave them for longer (with the risk that they could be going bad). My guess is that it'll be clear what's happening within a week, though.

Eggs set days apart: a staggered hatch means that eggs that aren't quite ready will go into lockdown with eggs that are (assuming you won't be using a separate hatcher). In that case, I'd minimize the changes during lockdown so all of the eggs have the best chance of hatching, like not cranking the humidity up to 70% right away (I wait until I see the first pip). With a few days' spread, you could have chicks that hatch several days after the first, so you'll want to be prepared to move older chicks that are dry into a prepared brooder within a couple of days of hatch so they can eat and drink (and also not kick the later-hatching eggs around).

Other advice: read the incubation articles in the Learning Center, including @Pyxis's comprehensive Guide To Assisted Hatching For All Poultry. Best of luck and have fun!

Wow! This was very informative, thank you so much!

For the staggered hatch, she set 5 eggs in the heating pad, (which I highly doubt even got hot enough to start development) four days ago. On Wednesday, she put those eggs in an actual incubator she bought, then the day after that, she put 4 more eggs in the bator. So as long as the heating pad did nothing, then the eggs are probably only a day apart, except for on egg we put in yesterday. So that one egg will be 3 days behind of the first hatchers. We'll see how it goes.

I have 7 days from the day she put them in a real incubator marked on my calendar for the first candle. I will also try a sponge or paper towel, thats another great tip.

Thank you so much for all the links and information! This is very helpful, I really appreciate it! Thanks again!

 

[Weeg]

Re humidity: using something to wick moisture, like a paper towel or a small piece of sponge wet may help stabilize it. I like to use a medical squeeze bottle with clear tubing attached to re-wet sponges without opening the incubator (particularly useful during lockdown). Some fluctuation will occur - as it likely would under a broody - so I aim for an average humidity % without extreme highs or lows for too long.

Thank you so much for this! I took the water cup out after it was at 50% this morning, , and waited for it to drop back down to 48%. Once it did, I took a very damp piece of paper towel, and folded it so it was about an inch long. Then put it in there. We left to ride horses, and just got back, the humidity and temp are still perfect! I really appreciate this advice!

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Thank you so much for this! I took the water cup out after it was at 50% this morning, , and waited for it to drop back down to 48%. Once it did, I took a very damp piece of paper towel, and folded it so it was about an inch long. Then put it in there. We left to ride horses, and just got back, the humidity and temp are still perfect! I really appreciate this advice!

That's excellent! Glad it helped stabilize your incubator's humidity.

 

[Weeg]

Hey guys, I hope this isn't a dumb question haha, but I've been having issues calibrating my thermometers.
I did the ice water, filled glass with ice, topped off with water. Then, I inserted the probe and let the temp drop. With the aquarium thermometer, the temp kept jumping. went down to 33 then up to 38 and stayed there. I then stirred the water and it dropped to 35, then 33, then 32.8. Walk away thinking its finally going down, com back, its at 38.
Then with the Other thermometer I bought, same ice water calibration, went down to 35%, stayed, then started to go up, went to 36. I pulled it out an assumed it was 2 degrees off, but I really don't know if the temps were gonna start jumping like the other one.
Am I doing something wrong? Is it just the Thermometers? Should I try again? I've tried multiple times with the aquarium thermometer, but wondering what you guys think.

 

[Weeg]

Looks like we may have on viable egg! I know its only 4 days, but I was hoping to see something. We only candled 2 today, and will candle all 5 of the ones that will be on day 5 tomorrow. I saw no change in one of the EE eggs. It didn't glow red, ( I read that is a way to tell viability) and the yolk seemed unchanged, I'm assuming that is one infertile, but giving it some time. (This is one of the 5)
We also candled an Asian black egg today that was on day 4, it glowed red and so did the yolk! I saw no signs of veins or anything, but hoping thats just because its only on day 4? Should I have seen something by now?

 

[Weeg]

I need some insight, I am re-calibrating my thermometer. I did ice water, and put the probe in the glass, its an insulated coffee cup glass if that matters. I've had it in for about 10-15 minuets, and its still going down by about .1 degree ever 1-2 minutes. Is this okay? Should I have taken it out a while ago? Just I had a temp jump, it went down to 32.8, then after a few moments, up to 33.6. Now, it just jumped back down to 32.9 and up to 33.1 again. Should I call 32.9 the calibration? Its .6 degrees off? Its to going down anymore, just jumping between 33 and 32 degrees. Ideas?