GQF Sportsman 1502 Humidity - Or Too Much Moisture Loss?

[PeaEggThief]

I bought a GQF Sportsman 1502 for hatching peafowl eggs and during my test runs here (on silkie eggs) I'm seeing a trend.

Quick hatchers (who unzip and hatch rapidly) has no issues - hatcher who slowly pip and unzip (over the course of 24 hours) are getting stuck/shrink wrapped.

The lockdown humidity is 73-75% and the door remains closed, so I thought that should be high enough to help prevent shrink wrapping.

I'm wondering if I'm having too much moisture loss during incubation and if that affects the chick's ability to move around while hatching. 5 out of 8 hatched with no intervention. 2 were obviously stuck (membranes on the shell turned opaque) and just needed a few dabs of warm water and help working the membranes off. One was unzipped but shrink wrapped inside the inner membrane of the egg, which had gone hard (just outside the first 24 hours since external pip). Poor guy had suffocated.

I'm wondering if my humidity is just slightly too low during incubation which is causing some sticking... or if I need closer to 90% humidity for lockdown?

For the record, this batch was a dry hatch (30% humidity).

 

[JaeG]

I'm not familiar with that particular incubator but if it is forced air it may be the fan blowing directly onto the eggs that's drying them out? That sometimes happens in mine if the chick takes too long to start unzipping.

Have you calibrated your hygrometer to make sure it is reading correctly? Here are some excellent instructions:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...incubator-thermometers-and-hygrometers.73634/

Unless the air cells looked abnormally large I don't think your initial humidity was the issue.

 

[PeaEggThief]

I'm not familiar with that particular incubator but if it is forced air it may be the fan blowing directly onto the eggs that's drying them out? That sometimes happens in mine if the chick takes too long to start unzipping.

That probably is the issue! The incubator I have is a cabinet style, with three layers of egg trays and a "hatch bin" on the bottom. It does have a strong fan.

Do you have any tricks you use for this, @JaeG ?

I wonder if there is a way to make a semi-permeable layer to keep the hatching bin less "windy" without affecting the heat/air circulation. I start thinking in the direction of a very thin acrylic sheet with holes, but I wonder if something as basic as cheese cloth would do it.

I will check out the link to the calibration thread! This GQF incubator is pretty well calibrated (atleast it's only off by 1/10 of a degree or so at times). The table top unit I wanted to use for lockdown is so off that I wanted to buy a third thermometer/hygrometer of a different brand just to make sure what I was reading was correct. It seemed too "off" to be true. It's one of those Little Giants with a small fan - easier to get high humidity, but it needed a lot of external insulation to help it maintain a good steady temp - I thought it could just work for lockdown, but I'm not so sure now. It makes me a bit nervous to try it with the pea eggs.

 

[Vaughnr007]

That probably is the issue! The incubator I have is a cabinet style, with three layers of egg trays and a "hatch bin" on the bottom. It does have a strong fan.

Do you have any tricks you use for this, @JaeG ?

I wonder if there is a way to make a semi-permeable layer to keep the hatching bin less "windy" without affecting the heat/air circulation. I start thinking in the direction of a very thin acrylic sheet with holes, but I wonder if something as basic as cheese cloth would do it.

I will check out the link to the calibration thread! This GQF incubator is pretty well calibrated (atleast it's only off by 1/10 of a degree or so at times). The table top unit I wanted to use for lockdown is so off that I wanted to buy a third thermometer/hygrometer of a different brand just to make sure what I was reading was correct. It seemed too "off" to be true. It's one of those Little Giants with a small fan - easier to get high humidity, but it needed a lot of external insulation to help it maintain a good steady temp - I thought it could just work for lockdown, but I'm not so sure now. It makes me a bit nervous to try it with the pea eggs.

What kind of peafowl do you have?

 

[PeaEggThief]

What kind of peafowl do you have?

I have India Blues, Bronzes, IB BS pied, and a young IB white eye pair. They are addicting... I really want to get some high % spauldings, peach and violetta this year! Gotta build more pens!

 

[PeaEggThief]

For anyone down the line having issues with hatches getting stuck when hatching in their GQF cabinets... the high powered fan will dry any slower hatchers out.

I experimented with a couple 5 eggs batches.

First I put some saran wrap over the middle of the tray (where the eggs were positioned) with about 10" open on the ends for air circulation. 2 slower hatchers out of those 5 got stuck (though one piped at the wrong end, so that may not be a good indicator).

For the second batch, I covered the whole hatching tray except for about 4" on both ends. 5 out of 5 hatched over 24 hours with even the slower hatchers needing no assistance. The temp and humidity in the tray seemed pretty much on target.

I think I'm going to use this "saran wrap wind break" method on whatever overflow of pea eggs I need to incubate because they can't fit under my silkies.

 

[Vaughnr007]

I have India Blues, Bronzes, IB BS pied, and a young IB white eye pair. They are addicting... I really want to get some high % spauldings, peach and violetta this year! Gotta build more pens!

I've only have India Blues and Whites. They're only 9 months and I'm looking ahead to when they're full grown. I located some java greens but they want a pretty penny and I too need to expand my pen. I did acquire some Red Golden Pheasant chicks last October and they already laying.