Yolk62
In the Brooder
- Aug 9, 2015
- 10
- 1
- 24
Hello all, thought we better get intros over with before asking some of our silly questions.
We have a small hobby farm on the south end of Vancouver Island BC. We have had chickens and other animals for a number of years and have both been brought up on farm type settings so are not "newbies" as such.
However, this is our first attempt at artificial incubation (chickens) and after reading up, extensively, I built an incubator and set our first clutch of eggs, 24 of them. A few ups and downs with heat control, humidity etc etc and are not having a great hatch, some eggs were duds from the get go, non-fertile, some died early, some made it to term but had issues and others were very late so this caused weak birds. Today is day 25 and we still have one piping and alive, one chirping with no piping and 4 others that candled and float tested well but due to the time frame we are not holding out hope.
So this is where we stand as of today and I will update and most likely have a list of questions as we progress, I will fine tune the incubator and set our next batch over the following days thanks. Jeremy
PS. One quick question that I really have not found a decent answer for, how on earth does a hen fluctuate humidity when sitting? I read during artificial incubation some say start around 35-45% and increase at lock down from 55% as high as 65%...? Is this correct and I am really not sure how a hen can create that high of a level of humidity?
Happy Laying..!
We have a small hobby farm on the south end of Vancouver Island BC. We have had chickens and other animals for a number of years and have both been brought up on farm type settings so are not "newbies" as such.
However, this is our first attempt at artificial incubation (chickens) and after reading up, extensively, I built an incubator and set our first clutch of eggs, 24 of them. A few ups and downs with heat control, humidity etc etc and are not having a great hatch, some eggs were duds from the get go, non-fertile, some died early, some made it to term but had issues and others were very late so this caused weak birds. Today is day 25 and we still have one piping and alive, one chirping with no piping and 4 others that candled and float tested well but due to the time frame we are not holding out hope.
So this is where we stand as of today and I will update and most likely have a list of questions as we progress, I will fine tune the incubator and set our next batch over the following days thanks. Jeremy
PS. One quick question that I really have not found a decent answer for, how on earth does a hen fluctuate humidity when sitting? I read during artificial incubation some say start around 35-45% and increase at lock down from 55% as high as 65%...? Is this correct and I am really not sure how a hen can create that high of a level of humidity?
Happy Laying..!
