Harris Farms Nurture Right 360 Incubator is AMAZING!

[SnapdragonQ]

I've been playing with the empty bator and some plain eggs for ideas. It seems the best way to go is to come with a way to twist the eggs instead of trying to prop everything up. If I try tilting a carton, in a variety of ways...the fan guard hits the top of the eggs, and of course creates a hot spot. Whatever I come up with it seems to need to be in the outer "ring" area of the bator in order to clear the fan guard.

Even got myself all excited by a "light bulb" idea of propping the entire bator up...til I realized it would then leak water all over the place! Doh!

 

[Willow2253]

Uh oh, I hope my altitude doesn’t mess up my hatch. I’m at 2800’.

 

[Faraday40]

I can't remember for the life of me who I was talking to about the temperature alarm on the NR360. I knew I didn't make it up!

I was fiddling with the incubator I broke and look! A temperature alarm! You just never hear it because it's typically very stable... unless you break yours too. Lol

My alarm went off about 15-20 min after I added new room temp eggs. The incubator complained that it was too cold. I hit the reset & it got up to temp before sounding another alarm. It did this both times I set new eggs in there.
* Currently it's being used as a hatcher, so the recent eggs going in are warm and 18 days old.

It's hard to get the top back on right because the plastic flexes.

I strongly agree. It's so frustrating when you remove chicks and want to close it back up quickly..... but can't because it won't fit perfectly into the small groove.

They seem ok. Just two sheets of ABS plastic molded over a heat pad. The stand is the REAL issue. I can think of a thousand ways to have made it better than that lol.

I once had to make a quick mama heating pad. I ended up hot glueing some Legos (technically Duplos) to a wire rack. Need more height because chicks grew - attach a few more Legos. It was what I had on hand.

I pulled the B plug out and that’s helping. It’s stabilized at about 5% lower than it was before. It also should be drying out here after today. It’s usually pretty arid, but it’s been raining tons for the last week. Luckily the forecast has no more after today.

Someone here mentioned that & removing the B plug really helped reduce my humidity. Thanks to whomever mentioned it.

@CrisAnderson27
Here's an article on the foot. If I ever have to do this I plan to use painter's tape so it will come off easier.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...s-with-tape-picture-tutorial-and-video.75247/

I just did this with a quail that hatched on Monday. It was running around great & feisty but feet looked like clubs. I used masking tape. Little quail looked like it had big duck feet, but within minutes it was hobbling and running again by the next day. Removed the tape Wed night and feet looked normal. I didn't have to retape.

Well, I was completely wrong. Not only did the tape stay, but it also has eliminated the stargazing issue. Literally, I picked the lil fluff off of his back to tape it's foot...put it back after, and it hasn't looked up even once since.

Weird, but worth it now that it seems to have fixed both issues.

So glad it worked for you. Strange that the stargazing also went away. Did you give some type of vitamins?

 

[SnapdragonQ]

Uh oh, I hope my altitude doesn’t mess up my hatch. I’m at 2800’.

I'm at 2000' and 17 of 18 eggs hatched here. Not shipped eggs, but it was my first hatch and I made plenty of mistakes.

 

[Willow2253]

I'm at 2000' and 17 of 18 eggs hatched here. Not shipped eggs, but it was my first hatch and I made plenty of mistakes.

Mine aren’t shipped either, everything is looking good so far.
I am still fighting with my humidity a little. I drained the water well to see what it runs at dry, and for some reason the humidity went up??? I still don’t think the eggs are losing enough weight, so I’m still trying to get the humidity down for the last week before lockdown.

 

[CrisAnderson27]

Hmmm, what's your altitude up there? I'm a few hours southeast-ish of you and I know I'm high enough to have to make changes in my canning and baking. I've been to Pennington Gap and it seems like we just went up...and up...and up!
I've read that altitude does affect hatchability and I've seen a few people at higher altitudes comment about having incubation trouble.. Didn't affect mine, but at only 2000' it seriously goofed up my yeast breads and baking.
I wonder if there are changes you can make for better outcomes given the differences in air pressure?? For my hatch here, again not too far away, I aimed for 45% for the first 17 days and the general ranges were mostly between 43% to 50%.

...I don't know because I didn't absord the info I saw on altitude and hatching changes.....just throwing out ideas.

I'm about 30 minutes south west of Pennington Gap lol. Elevation here is only 1400'...so not too bad. Something is up though. The vast majority of them tend to die after lockdown. Lively and moving on day 18....then nada on day 21. I thought maybe a dryer hatch would help. I actually think it did. After posting I candled the dead eggs and saw they were the ones that had the mark on them noting I was unsure if they were viable on day 16. So they probably weren't. Also, everything that pipped, hatched. This is the first time that happened.

Also, I just realized I can house 10 of my barred rock girls at my parents place (they're moving from AZ end of month). This will let me do ONE more hatch this season without going over my chosen maximum number of birds.

I strongly agree. It's so frustrating when you remove chicks and want to close it back up quickly..... but can't because it won't fit perfectly into the small groove.

I'm considering welding small, slightly angled polystyrene guide brackets to my base. This would let me replace the lid by getting it inside a slightly larger 'guide' area, then just drop it down gently. Should align itself and boom, it's closed.

I just did this with a quail that hatched on Monday. It was running around great & feisty but feet looked like clubs. I used masking tape. Little quail looked like it had big duck feet, but within minutes it was hobbling and running again by the next day. Removed the tape Wed night and feet looked normal. I didn't have to retape.

So glad it worked for you. Strange that the stargazing also went away. Did you give some type of vitamins?

Just Sav-A-Chick, and a drop of B Complex (injectable type, given orally). Thing is...it fixed INSTANTLY after taping. I literally picked him up off his back, taped him up...set him back down...and problem solved.

Mine aren’t shipped either, everything is looking good so far.
I am still fighting with my humidity a little. I drained the water well to see what it runs at dry, and for some reason the humidity went up??? I still don’t think the eggs are losing enough weight, so I’m still trying to get the humidity down for the last week before lockdown.

It should have been a short spike (minute or so), then dropped.

 

[aart]

Just Sav-A-Chick, and a drop of B Complex (injectable type, given orally). Thing is...it fixed INSTANTLY after taping. I literally picked him up off his back, taped him up...set him back down...and problem solved.

What was the timing between vitamin application and taping feet?

 

[Willow2253]

It should have been a short spike (minute or so), then dropped.

I think it was because I got as much water put as I could from the exterior trough, so there’s still a little in there, and then closed the vent a little in anticipation of it dropping. I opened everything back up to give it a chance to dry out. I did that about an hour ago and haven’t checked again yet, so I don’t know if it’s gone down yet.

 

[CrisAnderson27]

What was the timing between vitamin application and taping feet?

It was the day before. Right around 24ish hours. Like I said, the odd thing is it was such a light switch change. From flipping over every time it was put down...to content to lay, and walking not long after.

I almost wonder if the difference in where it instinctively thought it's foot was, was causing a weird reaction. Walking is an instinct in a newly hatched chick. The foot disrupting that might have odd consequence. Like a cat with inner ear issues. I've seen them walk in circles uncontrollably, and be unable to walk through an open door in front of them because they can't judge the opening location.

I'm just glad it worked though, whatever fixed it.

 

[Willow2253]

Well, the humidity is at 30% with no water, so I think I’m going to leave it dry until lockdown, since it was so high for the first week and a half. It’s usually so dry here, I guess I picked the one month of the year that it’s not to incubate.