Has anyone tried dry incubation and does it work well? And a sexlink breeding question.

[talkinboutchickens]

Thank you

I chose Cream Legbar, so have 4 of those. My eldest daughter chose Araucana, so she has 2x lavender and 2x black. My youngest daughter chose Cuckoo Maran, so she has 4 of those! Hopefully all will go well!

I’m impressed with my incubator so far. There is minor differences between its readings and the separate calibrated thermometer/hygrometer in there. It’s turning the eggs fairly well, every 2 hours. They don’t all turn each time - I’ve found the longer, pointier eggs (of which we have 1 from each breed!) turn less well than the short, round eggs. So I manually turn those ones sometimes.

I’m doing dry incubation - mostly. I add water very occasionally to prevent it from going below 20%, but apart from that it’s staying in the range 20-30% naturally. I’m finding it loses more humidity overnight, so I am shutting the vent more last thing before bed, and opening it up first thing in the morning. It’s working fairly well so far. We’re early days yet (day 3) and we’re looking forward to candling the eggs in a few days!

How’s your journey going so far?

Oh my gosh, I have always wanted araucanas, because I love how their cheeks that stick out!
When I was testing my incubator out and seeing if the egg tray will turn the eggs, turns out it doesn't because the holes only fit store-bought eggs, and my eggs are way bigger than that! Canadian Winds suggested that I should put shelf liner underneath my egg tray to prevent the eggs from skidding, but unfortunately my eggs are just too big that I have to hand turn them

Well, I haven't exactly set my eggs in the incubator yet, I'm still doing my research, but when I do you can join my hatch-along if you'd like! The theme is sweets. Candy, desserts, etc. You can either choose a name now and pick an egg to go along with the name when I post a pic of all the eggs, or when I post a pic of all the eggs you can name one then.

The ones that are taken so far are:

Tootsie roll
Cookies and cream
And Reese's Pieces (Reese for short)

 

[Moon Daizy]

I'm not the person you are asking, but here is one experience of my own:

I put eggs in the incubator, did not add water, and incubated them for one week. I did not have any way to measure humidity, and I did not do anything to try to change it. I did have an egg turner, and checked regularly to be sure it was actually working.

After a week, I candled the eggs, and compared the air cell size to a chart I found online. If the air cells were bigger than the one-week cells on the chart, I was going to add humidity to the incubator. But the air cells in my eggs were either the correct size or too small.

So I did not add water to the incubator, did let the turner keep turning eggs, and candled again at 2 weeks and at lockdown. Each time, the air cells were either the right size or too small.

For lockdown, I did add water to the incubator. I still had no way to measure humidity, so I just put water in all the places the incubator was designed to have water.

I got a fairly good hatch rate.

Checking humidity by air cell size is a method that has been in use for many years. If the humidity is too low (dry air), the egg will lose water too fast, and the air cell will be too big. If the humidity is too high (humid air), the egg will not lose water fast enough, and the air cell will be too small.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/air-sac-is-way-too-small-need-advice-please.1099126/
^This thread has an example of air cell sizes for eggs at various stages of incubation. Similar charts are available in many other places on the internet, and published in many books.

I have also seen charts for how much weight eggs should lose during incubation (weigh the eggs when you set them, then weigh them again at intervals, adjust humidity as needed.)

All of the different methods are really trying to accomplish two things:
--the eggs lose the right amount of moisture during incubation
--the humidity during hatch is high enough that the chicks do not become shrink wrapped (stuck to the shell.)

Some of those same ideas are in these articles:
https://www.brinsea.com/t-humidity.aspx
https://brinsea.com/Manuals/HumidityInIncubationEbook.pdf

I noticed that both of those articles, plus some other sources, said that too-high humidity tends to cause more problems than too-low humidity. That was one reason I started with no added water in the incubator. My other reason had to do with what is easiest: if the easy way works, I definitely want to know, so I can keep doing that!

I originally had almost no idea what humidity might be present in the incubator with no water. I knew the outdoors could be quite humid sometimes, and I knew that inside the house was often so dry that people had trouble with dry hands and cracking skin (the heating and the air conditioner both dry out the air.) Since the incubator was in the house, I thought it might have dry air, but I wasn't sure. Based on what I saw of the air cells, the humidity in my house really was high enough, and maybe even a bit too high, so I was glad I had not added water and made the situation worse!

Thank you for such a comprehensive reply that's really helpful!

 

[Moon Daizy]

Oh my gosh, I have always wanted araucanas, because I love how their cheeks that stick out!
When I was testing my incubator out and seeing if the egg tray will turn the eggs, turns out it doesn't because the holes only fit store-bought eggs, and my eggs are way bigger than that! Canadian Winds suggested that I should put shelf liner underneath my egg tray to prevent the eggs from skidding, but unfortunately my eggs are just too big that I have to hand turn them

Well, I haven't exactly set my eggs in the incubator yet, I'm still doing my research, but when I do you can join my hatch-along if you'd like! The theme is sweets. Candy, desserts, etc. You can either choose a name now and pick an egg to go along with the name when I post a pic of all the eggs, or when I post a pic of all the eggs you can name one then.

The ones that are taken so far are:

Tootsie roll
Cookies and cream
And Reese's Pieces (Reese for short)

How about liquorice?! My daughter is hoping she gets a black hen araucana to call liquorice! We love that name

I will definitely follow your hatch along! And I love the sweets theme!!

I also love the araucanas, they're meant to be friendly too - let's hope ours got that memo!!!

 

[Debbie292d]

Splayed legs is genetic has nothing to do with hatch method. I never add water to my bator the forst 18 days bbut then i add it to hatch

Splayed legs can be genetic, but the most common causes are slippery surfaces the chicks walk on their first days, or assisted hatches.

Thus, I always use the rubbery shelf liner for the lockdown incubator, paper towels in the brooder for the first few days then horse bedding pellets.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

How about liquorice?! My daughter is hoping she gets a black hen araucana to call liquorice! We love that name

I will definitely follow your hatch along! And I love the sweets theme!!

I also love the araucanas, they're meant to be friendly too - let's hope ours got that memo!!!

But what if you do get a black araucana that you want to name liquorice?? Are you fine with having 2 chicks named liquorice?
I will tag you when it comes time for my hatch-along, which is like in 2-4 weeks or so.
I got an easter egger in 2019 and she was supposed to be nice but she is super skittish.......
Yes, I hope your araucanas turn out to be nice as well!

 

[Dmparrish]

Hey all.....
Well I'm about to start my hatching in a few weeks (~2-4 more weeks) but I'm kinda on the fence about what type of hatch I should do. I heard that with wet hatching (normal hatch method) the hatch rate is lower and more chicks get splayed legs, whereas if you do the dry hatch method, the hatch rate is way higher and very little to no chicks get splayed legs. Is this true and have any of you done a dry hatch before? I am also hoping that with dry hatching it's simpler, because I'm just a beginner at this. And what exactly is the ambient humidity? Is it just the natural humidity in the air?
This is the video that I'm going off of.

And a random question regarding sexlinked chickens, they say that you can breed a barred female with a non-barred male to make a sexlinked chicken, so can the non-barred male be any breed I want that's not barred? Anything? So for instance an olive egger rooster and barred rock hen's offspring will be sexlinked? Easy as that? And I'm assuming that the males of all combinations will have dots on their heads?

Thank you!!!!

This may not help you, but with my quail, I have always done dry hatch and have had great hatch rates. With my seramas, I did the normal wet method and out of 5 eggs, 4 developed, and two hatched successfully. However, seramas have a low hatch rate in general. I am currently incubating duck eggs and am also doing the normal wet method. So far so good.

I live in GA which is pretty humid. And I think dry hatching is way easier because the humidity fluctuates a lot where I am when I am trying to keep it consistent. I remember I had it at 65% when I went to sleep, when I checked it the next day it was down to 30%! Having said that, I have only done it with quail. I haven't heard of it being feasible for chickens till now. I'll prob try it next time.

Also I agree with what @Debbie292d said and I also started using the rubber shelf liner with great success.

 

[Debbie292d]

Also I agree with what @Debbie292d said and I also started using the rubber shelf liner with great success.

They are great! I cut several to fit the incubators, then when dirty, just toss them in the washer. I let them air dry as that doesn't take long. The incubator doesn't get so dirty either.

 

[RcoM]

Hey all.....
Well I'm about to start my hatching in a few weeks (~2-4 more weeks) but I'm kinda on the fence about what type of hatch I should do. I heard that with wet hatching (normal hatch method) the hatch rate is lower and more chicks get splayed legs, whereas if you do the dry hatch method, the hatch rate is way higher and very little to no chicks get splayed legs. Is this true and have any of you done a dry hatch before? I am also hoping that with dry hatching it's simpler, because I'm just a beginner at this. And what exactly is the ambient humidity? Is it just the natural humidity in the air?
This is the video that I'm going off of.

And a random question regarding sexlinked chickens, they say that you can breed a barred female with a non-barred male to make a sexlinked chicken, so can the non-barred male be any breed I want that's not barred? Anything? So for instance an olive egger rooster and barred rock hen's offspring will be sexlinked? Easy as that? And I'm assuming that the males of all combinations will have dots on their heads?

Thank you!!!!

in nature, the outside humidity is not dry. My hen hatches give me a high percentage of hatch from viability. And splayed legs frequently come from slippery surfaces. It’s related to environment more than humidity; don’t let it get slippery and wet. My chicks are on a wooden floor with straw.

 

[NameIwish]

Is it just the natural humidity in the air?

I would think it much higher since the 'natural' method involves laying a living hen atop the clutch - think of the humidity under your armpit.

 

[NameIwish]

I tried a normal hatch and got 14/21 alive. I tried the dry hatch and got 18/22 alive so I would personally recommend dry hatching.

Hmmm, I dug two quarters out of my left front pocket and gave one to my wife. Then, we each flipped the quarters and recorded how they fell. So, based on that, it seems you should see me for heads and my wife for tails.

What is the AMBIENT HUMIDITY in the room where your incubator resides? Was it identical for each hatch you reference?

The difference in HATCH was four and four divided by 22 is 18% (82% Hatch) while four divided by 21 is 19% (66% Hatch) - a sixteen percent difference in the hatch rates.

You do not detail a PM of the eggs that did not hatch. Had an embryo developed to some extent in every one of them? None of them? Some of them?