Going on Vacation with eggs in the bator

[what did I do]

My husband wants to take a little vacation front day 16 or 17 to day 19 or 20 of incubation. What would you do?

A) Put them in lockdown before you left and take your chances. Someone has to take care of the chickens, they could watch for chicks.

B) Take the incubator to someone's house for them to hatch.

C) Any other ideas

The chicks will go to someone else's house to be brooded but I want to see the chicks before they go. I will get back two or 3 of them when they are older. These are Ameraucana eggs. I was supposed to get the eggs 2 weeks ago but some kids the the egg owner knew died in a car accident. I didn't push for the eggs . I just gave up on them thinking I'd do it next year. Then they showed up! I had to put them in the bator. What yo do?

 

[what did I do]

I have a Hova-Bator 236N with an egg turner. It keeps good temps.

 

[cochins1088]

As far as early lock down, not turning would be OK, but I wouldn't raise the humidity that early, maybe the person who cares for your chickens could raise the humidity according to your instructions. You could take it to someones house, of course, I don't know too many people that I would personally trust with my incubator. Too many things that could go wrong, but if you know the right person, thats also an option. And for another idea, I actually took mine with me once. It was during the middle of incubation, but I put the eggs in cartons filled with paper towls to stabalize them during the trip and plugged the incubator into the car outlette. I realize that many things could have gone wrong right then and there and I wouldn't recommend it but my hatch was surprising uneffected by the 3 hours of driving and moving around, and I had a 95% hatch rate. If you trust your incubator as far as no tempature swings, I would take out the turners and instruct someone to raise the humidity on day 18 as leave it like that. The chicks shouldn't hatch until after 21 full days, so you should have to worry about chicks being left alone, and even so they can go 3 days without food and water. But it's always better to have someone that knows what they are doing monitering the incubator. So, if you know the right person, I'd let them watch it, but otherwise, take out the turners and instruct someone to raise the humdity and simply look at the temp. to make sure it's correct.

 

[cochins1088]

It all comes down too, do you trust your incubator to hold tempature while you are away? Or do you have someone that you trust with your incubator?

 

[what did I do]

Thanks cochins, you have given me something to think about. I talked to the man who is going to take them and he is willing to hatch them - but I want to - . All I have to do is take them over to him. I'ge got a little time to think on this. I'll keep you posted on what we do.

 

[cochins1088]

Personally, I think the hatch is the best part. All that work leads up to that day. If your coming back on day 20, you could probably take them back without problems so that you can witness the hatch. I would carefully place them into cartons small end down and put paper towels around them to keep them still. They hatch out of the big end, so the cartons are no problem. Some people purposely put cartons in on day 18 because they believe the chicks have an easier time hatching out of them. So you would have to be careful, but it's amazing what they survive, we had a power outrage on the night of day 20 that lasted 12 hours, many had already pipped and were exposed to 70 degrees and very low humidity and yet the chicks still hatched soon after.

I assume this guy would let you come over and watch one or two hatch if you are worried about traveling with them during lock down, there are risks to it especially if you don't know what you are doing but it also can be done.

If you want another amazing survival story, let me tell you about this one. It's a long story but I ened up with a egg with an embryo at day 16 that I didn't realize had an embryo in it. The egg sat on the kitchen table for 3 days at normal room conditions like 70 degrees and such. I crack it and the little babe was still alive after 3 days of no incubation, I couldn't believe it and I felt sooo bad. Another embryo of mine ended up with insanely high humidity for nearly all of it's development (70%) and had extremely low humdiity for hatch (20%) I was sure it wasn't alive and I went down to unplug the incubator and there he was chirping along. Again, long story of how I got into these situations.

I wish you luck with whatever you decide, but they would more than likely be fine if you did an early lockdown, I didn't read the days right before. A day early of higher humdiity wouldn't hurt a thing, and then they would be at your house ready to hatch when you come back. Personally with my incubator, I would probably go with this direction. Sorry about my tendancy to ramble.

 

[CarolJ]

I had the same thing happen to me a few weeks ago. My husband had a business trip and really wanted me to go with him. I honestly didn't want to go - but it meant a lot to him, and we ended up having a wonderful time. I put the eggs into lockdown before I left (which was a couple days early) - and then had the person who watched the chickens for me to keep an eye on the bator and add water as needed. I wrote out detailed instructions. My chicken-sitter only stopped by once a day - so the humidity was almost certainly not maintained throughout that time. Her last report - on day 20 was that 1 egg had hatched, and there were 3 others with "cracks" in the shell. When I got home the next day (late on day 21), I was greeted to the sound of lots of peeping coming out of the bator. Out of 11 eggs in the bator - 10 had hatched. For many reasons, I feel like the less we mess with the eggs, the better the hatch. I've had several broody hens now - and I see them leave the nest for awhile - and they have much better hatch rates than the bator ever has.

So, if I were in your shoes, I'd do what I did last time: put eggs in lock down early - instruct chicken-sitter to add water to maintain humidity as much as possible. Then relax and enjoy the vacation and see what happens with the eggs/chicks. If you're definitely going to be home by day 19 - you could just wait till then to put them in lock own.

Whatever you decide - I wish you lots of luck and good hatching - and enjoy the mini-vacation!

 

[what did I do]

You all have amazing hatch stories. I talked to a family member of the people who will watch the chickens today. He seems to think that the mother and kids would love to take care of the eggs. More to think about.

 

[what did I do]

We left the girls incharge. They did just fine. We came home to two chicks. All is well

 

[cochins1088]

YAY!

Good Luck with your little ones!