First time hatching Guinea Fowl

[MeepBeep]

The temperature should be lowered by 1° at lockdown, the same time that you raise the humidity.

IMO, this step is purely optional as is pretty much every other 'lock down' rule and even 'lock down' itself... Broody birds sitting on eggs can't and don't count and thus don't do anything different from day 1 until the birds hatch, their only real method of time keeping when sitting is when the birds emerge from the egg, keep rotating out eggs before they hatch and you can keep a bird broody for months, they just keep doing the same thing with no idea what day it is...

 

[Victoria-nola]

Quote: Thank you. I didn't know about lowering the temp on my one other hatch, and when the temp went down when I lowered the humidity, I wasn't prepared and tried to raise the temp, not a good idea at that point. If the temp goes below 1-degree lower, should I just wait and see if it stabilizes, or try to do something about it? I remember the temp changed by perhaps 2-degrees (F), maybe less, but I was scared by it.

 

[Victoria-nola]

Quote: I hear you about rule making where none is natural, otoh the incubator is not a natural situation, as I well found out my first hatch When you say, "this step is optional" do you mean raising the humidity or lowering the heat by 1-degree? I had some very sad cases of glued/shrinkwrapped eggs my first hatch due to incubator malfunction and I was planning to be very vigilant about humidity this time.

 

[MeepBeep]

I hear you about rule making where none is natural, otoh the incubator is not a natural situation, as I well found out my first hatch    When you say, "this step is optional" do you mean raising the humidity or lowering the heat by 1-degree?

Both are optional and neither is required at the end of they day... If the humidity is already at a decent level there is no need to actually raise it... Yes, lower humidity increases the risk of shrink wrapping but not raising the humidity does not mean you will have shrink wrap problems... I have the ability to raise humidity at any time, but I only do it when I see struggling birds or if it's taking a long time for them to zip after the external zip, and I don't even remember the last time a bird failed to zip and exit an egg... Ambient humidity and incubator humidity is all over the place, what works for someone in Florida might be a disaster in Arizona and neither might work in a high altitude Colorado location, what works on a day that is humid and a day that isn't could be drastic in an area where the humidity is not controlled, or what works in your incubator might be a disaster in other incubators... With the exception of temperature high and low limits pretty much every other rule should honestly be taken as a guideline suggestion not a rule...

I had some very sad cases of glued/shrinkwrapped eggs my first hatch due to incubator malfunction and I was planning to be very vigilant about humidity this time.

And in that case or if you constantly experience shrink wrap problems it's a good idea to raise humidity to a level that helps alleviate this... This can be done easily if you see the birds struggling, just get a $1 spray bottle at the dollar store and fill it with warm water, open the incubator and mist in and around the eggs and the sizes of the incubator trying not to 'puddle' or leave actual 'drops' of water on the eggs themselves... Close the incubator and the humidity should jump to near 100% in a matter of minutes... Or consider a small ultrasonic mister, they can be had for a few bucks on Ebay, put one in the incubator on a switch, if you notice a chick having trouble flip the switch, a few minutes later you should have 100% humidity and you can turn it off...

My advise to anyone that is having incubation problems, start a log and document every little bit you can, with some trial and error you will likely find a set of 'rules' that work well for you even if they are against the traditional 'rules'...

 

[charid]

In my experience (two hatches) you really can't have humidity too high during hatch. I take them out once they are very alert and running around since with super high humidity it takes a long time for them to dry. I lower the temp slightly (95ish),

I went in to take the early bird out and I saw bird 2 had pipped, zipped, and already working his way out within an hour. Bird 1 is fluffy and dry and ran all over the new guy . Poor thing was dragging his shell around with his butt and his brother was crashing through the other eggs, rolling them around and stomping on the baby. Now I will wait so I can put them in brooder together. Seems like it only took bird 1 about 7 hrs to dry. He is already stretching his neck up. Seems dangerous as the heating coil is barely tall enough. Spry little thing.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I went in to take the early bird out and I saw bird 2 had pipped, zipped, and already working his way out within an hour. Bird 1 is fluffy and dry and ran all over the new guy

. Poor thing was dragging his shell around with his butt and his brother was crashing through the other eggs, rolling them around and stomping on the baby. Now I will wait so I can put them in brooder together. Seems like it only took bird 1 about 7 hrs to dry. He is already stretching his neck up. Seems dangerous as the heating coil is barely tall enough. Spry little thing.

Yes, I don't like how low the heaters are in these things. It's even worse when hatching turkeys or geese.

Its so strange how some will take hours and hours and others will almost pop out like popcorn. And some just lay there, totally exhausted, and others start running all over the place right away.

 

[MeepBeep]

I went in to take the early bird out and I saw bird 2 had pipped, zipped, and already working his way out within an hour. Bird 1 is fluffy and dry and ran all over the new guy . Poor thing was dragging his shell around with his butt and his brother was crashing through the other eggs, rolling them around and stomping on the baby. Now I will wait so I can put them in brooder together. Seems like it only took bird 1 about 7 hrs to dry. He is already stretching his neck up. Seems dangerous as the heating coil is barely tall enough. Spry little thing.

Yes, I don't like how low the heaters are in these things. It's even worse when hatching turkeys or geese. 

My DIY has a self contained heating box and plenty of height, so know worries for me now, but if you are using a cheaper foam one or what not try to build a trim ring extension to move the heating element upwards...

I did this to my cheap foam incubator when I was hatching out Peafowl and it worked very well, it even helped eliminate the hot spots...

Cost about $7 for an entire 4x8 sheet of foam, and a couple of bucks for 5 minute epoxy, a few minutes later presto cheap fix and plenty of left over foam for another project