Hatch-Along - Setting eggs this weekend (Jan5/6) WHOS WITH ME!

[TheCosmos]

awwww...I just got my new Brinsea MiniAdvanced today. Guess their shipping dept was still holiday-groggy. I did get 6 eggs in my weekly CSA bin--she runs her hens with a few roos so they are likely to be fertile-- and I put 1 fertilized egg from Trader Joe's in for fun. I'll play along, but I'm behind. Not really expecting a lot but hey, I have a new toy!

Leslie

You will LOVE this new toy!! I have a Brinsea Mini Advance and it is the easiest plug and play bator in the world!! My first hatch was 7/7 and so far I'm 6/7 this go round.. I have one that is questionable but it is a very porous egg so not the incubator's fault.

 

[fisherlady]

OK... gonna try to add a video.
We caught Gracie on tape doing some rearranging, never saw a similar video clip on here yet, that I recall, so thought I'd share.

 

[fisherlady]

Evidently she thought the egg in the front was getting too cool.... so she shuffled it to the middle for a bit. We've seen her do this many times, but finally managed to get the recording thing figured out.

I love her 'broody shuffle' after she sits back down....

 

[FeyRaine]

OK... gonna try to add a video.
We caught Gracie on tape doing some rearranging, never saw a similar video clip on here yet, that I recall, so thought I'd share.

WOW that is great! I've had hens go broody & raise a clutch several times, but never gotten to view their secret egg rotating actions.
Her wiggling her fluff back down so carefully around the clutch at the end is too cute.

 

[SarahJaneB]

Wowwww that video is incredible!! Thank you so much for sharing!

 

[Sally8]

Loved the video also!

I candled just a bit go and I see a whole lot of veining going on! Some were still clear but was expected. Some of the eggs were held from before Christmas and it's been very cold here and I only collected eggs twice a day. Very excited! I did notice that the Silver Spangled Hamburgs were 100 percent veining. The green eggs I couldn't see anything and the blue eggs I could see the air sac. Going to wait a few more days and then document everything. Sue

 

[SilkieSensation]

Evidently she thought the egg in the front was getting too cool.... so she shuffled it to the middle for a bit. We've seen her do this many times, but finally managed to get the recording thing figured out.

I love her 'broody shuffle' after she sits back down....

I love the broody shuffle as well. She's adorable!!! Go Gracie Go!!!

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

This could be from what I was talking about earlier. Your eggs on top are slowing development of the ones below by blocking the heat. This is why I suggested rotating the top layer down & the eggs under to the top every few days to help even out temp averages. Personally, when I stack eggs I rotate every time I turn, but I'm also hand turning so this is pretty easy to do. I simply lift the top egg out & trade it with 1 from a random space in the bottom making sure I flip it to the "turned" side marking so I don't accidentally rotate it back to a top spot in that turning. By doing this, no egg gets stuck in the "hot spot" for too long & none stay in the "cold spots" either. It helps even development & avoid dead babies.

I was thinking this might be the case as well. I did some research this morning, and found a video where a woman demonstrated how to fit a lot more eggs on the bottom level of the Brinsea by removing the dividers. So I rearranged, and was amazed to find I could fit 29 eggs on the bottom row without the dividers! Previously, I could only fit 24, with 6 stacked on top. As I was finding a way to stack the last remaining egg on top, I noticed one of the bottom layer had a tiny crack, so I replaced it with the loose egg. Not sure if I cracked it while I was candling or rearranging. Thankfully, it was one I had marked to likely be infertile. So now I have 29 eggs, all neatly arranged in a single row. There's always a learning curve with a new incubator.

 

[Outrun Acres]

So today our humidity has been very touchy...we've been trying to keep it between 35-40% but it keeps going up to 42% even after we have taken water out of the troughs at the bottom. Hopefully this doesn't affect them too much

Ours has been very touchy too. We are doing a dry hatch and our humidity has risen to 50%. This is mainly because is has been raining for the last couple of days. Besides removing all of the water from your trays I don't know what else you can do. A wise member on this thread assured me that broody hens hatch chicks all the time in areas where the humidity is very high. Put my mind at ease a little bit. Short of turning on the air conditioning in the middle of winter, I don't know what else to do . I think as long as it stays below 50 you should be ok.

 

[SilkieSensation]

Ours has been very touchy too. We are doing a dry hatch and our humidity has risen to 50%. This is mainly because is has been raining for the last couple of days. Besides removing all of the water from your trays I don't know what else you can do. A wise member on this thread assured me that broody hens hatch chicks all the time in areas where the humidity is very high. Put my mind at ease a little bit. Short of turning on the air conditioning in the middle of winter, I don't know what else to do . I think as long as it stays below 50 you should be ok.

All you really CAN do is remove all of your water. The only time I have really had problems with humidity even doing a dry hatch was this past summer when my basement got flooded about 3-4 times during incubation & that's where my bators were. With it being so hot out it raised the humidity thru the roof & my poor chicks didn't even begin to develop since it was right at the beginning of incubation. I lost about 12 dozen eggs in 5 bators. The bad part was that most of them were shipped eggs, so I lost a fortune. My bators no longer live in the basement & other than some temp issues during my recent move hatching has gone quite well with just using the ambient humidity in the house until lockdown. I'll be honest, only 1 of my bators even has a hygrometer on it & it's built in or it wouldn't be there either. All I really monitor is temps to keep them in the 100-101F range, add a bowl of hot water when I get my 1st pip when running a staggered hatch or at lockdown when using 1 bator for hatching only. The only time I add water during incubation is if I candle & my air cells are getting to big too fast. That is the best indicator of what your humidity is doing. Someone posted the air cell chart earlier in this post I think. If not, Sally Sunshine has it in MANY of her threads. It is the best indicator of humidity levels you can get. Just watch your air cells & adjust humidity accordingly.