Hatch success rate

[WillMauritsen]

Hello,

I am fairly new to this whole incubation thing, and am incubating 8 eggs in a Janoel 12 right now. I am on day 23 and one chick has hatched so far, and another one pipping. I think the reason for the late hatch is because I had accidentally kept my temp low for the 20 days of the hatch... anyways, I candled the eggs at day 18 and all the eggs have a chick inside I am just wondering what my hatch rates will look like and what your guys' hatch rates have looked like in the past... I have my humidity set in the high 70's and temp at 37°C.

Thanks!

 

[MGG]

Hello,

I am fairly new to this whole incubation thing, and am incubating 8 eggs in a Janoel 12 right now. I am on day 23 and one chick has hatched so far, and another one pipping. I think the reason for the late hatch is because I had accidentally kept my temp low for the 20 days of the hatch... anyways, I candled the eggs at day 18 and all the eggs have a chick inside I am just wondering what my hatch rates will look like and what your guys' hatch rates have looked like in the past... I have my humidity set in the high 70's and temp at 37°C.

Thanks!

I have that incubator. Do you have a calibrated thermometer inside the incubator with the eggs? The one on top is what the temp is set to, but it almost always is way off. Mine was off by 4 degrees! What has humidity been during incubation? The last 18 days I mean.

 

[WillMauritsen]

I have that incubator. Do you have a calibrated thermometer inside the incubator with the eggs? The one on top is what the temp is set to, but it almost always is way off. Mine was off by 4 degrees! What has humidity been during incubation? The last 18 days I mean.

Yes, I bought a thermometer with a built in hygromter and kept the humidity in the low 60's during incubation period, and yes the built in thermometer is off by about 2.5°C.
My hatch is probably a little late because the temp was a little off..

 

[MGG]

Yes, I bought a thermometer with a built in hygromter and kept the humidity in the low 60's during incubation period, and yes the built in thermometer is off by about 2.5°C.
My hatch is probably a little late because the temp was a little off..

60% is pretty high. The lowest hatch rate I've ever had in mind was 90%. I love the incubator. I've hatched over 200 birds out of it. It's like an extension of my body, lol.

 

[WillMauritsen]

Thanks so much, that's good to hear you've had success with it, haha!

 

[WillMauritsen]

60% is pretty high. The lowest hatch rate I've ever had in mind was 90%. I love the incubator. I've hatched over 200 birds out of it. It's like an extension of my body, lol.

Also, you seem to be quite the chicken expert with the Janoel 12 model... would you be so kind to offer me some crucial tips in relation with the Janoel 12? That would be great so I can be prepared for next time!

 

[MGG]

Also, you seem to be quite the chicken expert with the Janoel 12 model... would you be so kind to offer me some crucial tips in relation with the Janoel 12? That would be great so I can be prepared for next time!

Thanks! I wrote this for someone else, if you have any other questions let me know. I would write another but it takes me forever on my phone, lol. It was for someone with ducks, I don't remember if i had any specific duck instructions in it.

 

[MGG]

Here it is. I modified it so it's correct for chicks now. First of all, use little cups like these to manage humidity. It gets way too high with pouring water in the bottom like the manual says. Make sure you have a calibrated thermometer and hydrometer. This is very important, probably the most important thing. The factory set one on top is almost never accurate. What I do when I have too many eggs to fit in the turner or I want to turn them manually is I take some of that grippy rubber shelf liner, unravel some, trace the hatching tray (not the bigger tray, use the one that fits in the bottom) onto the shelf liner. Cut out a piece of the shelf liner and lay it on the hatching tray. Put the hatching tray with the shelf liner in. It should sit nicely in the bottom. Then take the 2 or 3 cups full of water and place them on top of the tray in varipus spots. Make sure the turning rod can't hit any of the cups or the eggs. This helps me manage humidity so much better. I like using the hatching tray for all of incubation because I can see inside to check the thermometer without removing the lid. If the humidity gets too high remove a cup, if it gets too low add some more cups. You can also put a little wad of toilet paper or little cut sponge pieces in the cups to help up the humidity. Use warm water. I candle my eggs every day or every other day. It doesn't hurt them and it's amazing to see. You can also notice of one starts to not look good, and you can pull it before it explodes. Make sure you don't drop any while candling though. Mark your air cells on the 5, 8, 12, 15, and 18th days. That's what I do. I like to have 5 lines to refer to on my eggs so I can see if they've adequately grown. Look at some air cell charts for duck eggs. Don't stress over them though. Make sure you turn the eggs an odd number of times per day, either 3 or 5 times. Never let them lay on the same side for two nights in a row. Keep a turnimg chart so you know when you turned them last. I like to cover my incubator with a blanket (everywhere but the air hole, leave it uncovered or the eggs will suffocate) to help control temp amd humidity fluctuations. Make absolutely sure the incubator can't fall. If you have cats keep them far away from it. There are too many horror stories of people or cats knocking down or unplugging the incubator. If that happens the outlook isn't good. Try to keep the humidity at 35-45% until lockdown, and keep the temp from 99.0-99.9. I use a digital thermometer from AvianWeb, it fits really nicely in there and it also reads humidity. You have to calibrate it though by putting it in a Ziploc bag and submerging it in a cup of crushed ice with a tiny bit of water. (mostly all ice) The temp should read 32 degrees. I don't remember how ro test humidity, it's a salt test, I don't remember how I did it though. There are lots of tutorials on that. When you get closer to lockdown I can give you some more tips. Good luck with your eggs. Sorry for any typos, I wrote this on my phone and autocorrect is horrible to deal with. I hope this helps for now. Here are the cups, and how the incubator should look. I had run out of grippy stuff so I had to use a cloth. The grippy stuff is the best though. It also shows the thermometer I use.

And here are some quail in lockdown.

 

[MGG]

You can fit in a lot of eggs if you don't use the turner. I have successfully hatched a clutch of 29 guinea eggs in there at the same time. I stacked them, I had 2 layers of eggs. It was kinda crazy. The neighbor had a hen abandon her nest and he brought me all the eggs. It was worth a shot I thought. I just rotated them by hand. 28 hatched. It was awesome. I don't have the really good picture anymore, my laptop died and they were on there. I have a pic where you can kinda see though. Don't let the 12 egg part fool you. Here's one pic. 3 guineas had already hatched. I also threw in a few duck eggs with the guineas. I had to mist them very frequently though because there was no room for water cups. The temp in the pic was 89 because it dropped while I was candling.

 

[WillMauritsen]

Wow! Thanks so much for all the advice, I guess I'm somewhat of an expert now, haha!

Another chick has hatched today (Leghorn), and there are two more eggs with pips and 3 other eggs with no sign of pipping (as of an hour ago). The eggs with pips in them seem to not be doing much but just jostling around back and forth every now and then.... hopefully they are able to un-zip! Anyways, thanks for all of the useful advice, I will be sure to try and use it for hatches to come!