From incubator to broody?? Shipped eggs.

[Slothinc]

When are you setting eggs!?!

Oh my, somehow I wrote that I wanted to set eggs in the brinsea now. But I meant “from now on” I don’t plan on setting any more eggs until my own chickens start having fertile eggs, which I have no idea when that will be hahaha. I gave away 7 cockerels in the past week but I still have 1-2 in my oldest batch of chicks.

 

[2ndTink]

Oh my, somehow I wrote that I wanted to set eggs in the brinsea now. But I meant “from now on” I don’t plan on setting any more eggs until my own chickens start having fertile eggs, which I have no idea when that will be hahaha. I gave away 7 cockerels in the past week but I still have 1-2 in my oldest batch of chicks.

I got excited there... I'm not hatching so I'm trying to keep living the dream through everyone else

 

[Slothinc]

I got excited there... I'm not hatching so I'm trying to keep living the dream through everyone else

lol I feel you!!!! I truly have hatched my last batch for awhile! Maybe until this lavender silkie baby grows up enough to get babies from

 

[2ndTink]

lol I feel you!!!! I truly have hatched my last batch for awhile! Maybe until this lavender silkie baby grows up enough to get babies from

In that case, maybe we can band together to try and stay the course and resist all hatching urges

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Wow I wonder if my incubator is having that same issue since your hatched sounded quite like mine!! Every single time I checked the temps (very frequently) they were all normal but I am convinced that the incubator is junk. I hope to use my new (to me) brinsea mini now.

Unless the incubator is a Little Giant, it may not be junk.
Even the most expensive electronics can be inaccurate out of t he box. The temperature readings may just be off. All you have to do is verify them and adjust accordingly or reset it if it has a calibration feature.

 

[Sweden chick]

True, they can be off, but heat spikes should not happen like it did in mine

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Occasionally my little giants spiked to 107 and would settle to low 90s and back up again. The high temp was for enough duration to kill the embryos.

 

[Mamadonna6]

I have been using the incubator with 3 additional thermometers inside (govee and thermpro) and don’t know what the problem is even after all of these batches. There do seem to be some spots in the incubator that are warmer or cooler by a degree - found by experimenting and moving all of the thermometers around to check temps throughout incubation.

But the weird thing is that the chicks that do develop most of the way (which isn’t many because I believe most of them didn’t develop/stopped very early due to shipping issues), but the ones that do develop most of the way are dying between 18-21 days. And those who do make it to 20-21 days aren’t pipping because of shrink wrapping. I have experimented with almost every variable and still can’t figure it out but the eggs that spent the most time under the broodies were the most successful.

With one batch I had 25 eggs in the incubator and 3 under a broody… not one of the 25 hatched (though several made it to lockdown) so 100% failure with the incubator. But under the broody, one egg hatched, so only 66% failure. I wouldn’t recommend the chickcozy incubator to anyone. I may try it again when I am able to get my own fertilized eggs. But not with shipped eggs again. And I don’t have hope for my own eggs because in the last batch I put in 6 local eggs and put 3 under the broody for most of the time. All six in the incubator didn’t develop/or didn’t hatch, and 2/3 that spent most of the time under the broody did hatch (I did have to help one of them out.) so weird. But if anyone ever reads this in the future, I guess the moral is to not buy chick cozy incubators!!

Have you tried just leaving the eggs upright in the Chickcozy? Thats the only way I incubate them in mine and also in my Farm Innovator, I had terrible luck when i laid them down as per instructions poor things were drowning. At first I was adding water and all through the 21 days as they said after losing 22 and only having 1 actually hatch I tried a different method. No water until lockdown in South Ga. our humidity is killer. Also the plastic egg crates help in the upright postion....Now i get a 90% hatch rate. Working on my 4th Dry hatch, Lockdown is tommorrow..

 

[Slothinc]

Have you tried just leaving the eggs upright in the Chickcozy? Thats the only way I incubate them in mine and also in my Farm Innovator, I had terrible luck when i laid them down as per instructions poor things were drowning. At first I was adding water and all through the 21 days as they said after losing 22 and only having 1 actually hatch I tried a different method. No water until lockdown in South Ga. our humidity is killer. Also the plastic egg crates help in the upright postion....Now i get a 90% hatch rate. Working on my 4th Dry hatch, Lockdown is tommorrow..

I have kept them upright for all past hatches! However, I just completed a hatch with my chickcozy with eggs from my flock and they did surprisingly well. I kept the humidity high (50%) - we have very low humidity here, possibly part of the reason the chicks kept shrink wrapping. Anyways of the 18 eggs that developed, 15 hatched. I think that shipping is the MAJOR killer. But I also had to adjust the temp in the chickcozy to a few degrees higher than the default. And it randomly shut off during lockdown for about two hours before I noticed. Temp got down to 82 before I saw it - thank goodness the chicks still hatched. I think they were far enough along to generate a little body heat.

Still have mixed feelings on the incubator. It might be good for people hatching their own flock but a big NO for shipped eggs. Also it makes a high pitched sound constantly which drives me a little crazy