Hatchalong! Setting Eggs April 6, 2012. Anyone else in?

[tgperg]

I'm going to set some Dominique eggs tomorrow. Been warming up the incubator and fidgeting with it to get everything ready. Who else is in?

 

[tgperg]

Thought I would post some pictures of my set up.



I have a psychotic, egg-hating Little Giant. It's a piece of crap incubator, truly, but it's the only one I've got.



I added three bottles of water as heat sinks to help modulate temperature swings. I added two lab thermometers, a wet bulb and a dry bulb. The dry bulb is inserted into a plastic toy wiggle snake to approximate the temperature inside the egg. I have a laptop fan at the back powered by a USB adaptor to provide circulated air. With the dry bulb and wet bulb thermometers I can figure relative humidity, because yay, SCIENCE! That teeny tube you see is so I can add water if it's needed without opening the incubator. Finally, the eggs will be in cartons till day 18 and I'll just tilt the incubator side to side instead of opening it three times a day to rotate them by hand.



Here are the eggs. I have 21 Dominique eggs from my flock. They're all sired by the same rooster. After I build my new pasture pen, I'm going to rotate Not-Bob out and put him in isolation to give Bob a chance. I'll set those eggs after these hatch.



Here goes! Hopefully everything will go well and I'll get a great hatch rate. Wish me luck! Post your pictures too!

 

[loves2hatch]

I'm in with you. I set for a friend, 20 barnyard mix chicken eggs last night and 20 today. I'm hoping to get a hatch under the fruitful sign of the waxing moon on April 26&27 according to the farmers almanac. I'm new to BYC so I'll have to read up so I know how to post pictures but I will wait til monday to try and post pictures and give you more specifics. This should be fun hatching along with someone else.

 

[SilverDuck284]

I'm in!!! Set my very first 8 eggs today!! I'm so excited! I'm trying to hatch duck eggs so mine take an extra week. A whole 28 days of waiting! x3. I'm trying to look on the bright side though, only 7 days till the first candling. I hope I can wait that long
I don't want to candle them early and not see anything, I would be sad. Hoping for the best!

 

[tgperg]

Awesome! The more the merrier!

 

[tgperg]

At least they're not muscovies, right? 35 days for those puppies!

 

[tgperg]

Grrr. My temp dropped like a rock adding the eggs. I've only got it back up to 37 (98.6) now. Humidity dropped too, down to 28%, so I added a bit of water and it shot up to 50%. Shoot. The fan will dry it out though, so I'm not going to freak out. Yet.

 

[SilverDuck284]

No, Cayuga. =) my first eggs, and hopefully my first ducks! Better cooler than too hot right? The last thing I want to see in my Bayer is any heat spikes. If the temp drops a little its just the same as it mom goes to get a.drink. Right? =]

 

[tgperg]

I guess it's okay. But a consistent low temperature throughout the hatch will cause deformities in the chicks, I thought. So, I'm hoping overnight it will come back up. Congratulations on your first ducks. I want to get ducks next year.

 

[Zootopia]

I'm in. I set 2 batches of shipped eggs on the 6th. One is a mixed bag Coronation Sussex, Ex Leghorn, Marans, Wheaten, and Blue Wheaten Am that had one broken egg. That one egg got goo all over the rest of the eggs so I had to wash them.

The second batch is LF Lemon Blue Cochin project eggs

. I already have a couple of EE's and 5 Turkey eggs in from the 31st of March and 6 BLRW shipped with some wonky air cells that go into lockdown on the 9th. I have the turner off till the new eggs have been in 5 to 7 days in case the air cells are loose, so I'm turning the older ones by hand for now.
I have a Hovabator 1588 w/auto turner I bought in January and last week I got a used Reptipro 5000 (off ebay) that doesn't have shelves. So now I can have staggered hatches, incubating in the 1588 and lockdown/hatching in the Reptipro (which is alot easier to clean). I rigged a plastic egg flat I cut to fit about 4in off the floor in the Reptipro since the temps are graduated, cooler on the bottom and warmer at the top. (about 2.5 to 3 degrees). A friend has had small cabinet bators that quit recently so she is sending me her shelves.
I do a version of the dry hatch. It is often very dry here so I try to keep the humidity about/above 30%, adding warm water 1cc at a time if necessary during the incubation, days 1-18. I was adding water to the 1588 to get a 55-65% for lock down but now with the Reptipro I am learning that the Cabinet bators don't lose humidity much, it looks like I'm going to be locking down at about 45% and letting the hatching chicks raise the humidity level. This is the recommendation of a friend who uses Reptipros. I will adjust it as I learn I'm sure.