Hatching at high altitude

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I'm at 8,400 ft in dry Colorado- I've gotten 3 out of 60 shipped eggs to hatch from various elevations. I just wonder this morning if elevation could be part of the issues as most seem to stop around day 16.. Forced air hovabator, digital thermostat, dry hatch method. Any suggestions??
 
I wouldn't do a dry hatch at altitude. I'd use humidity because, at least if you are getting eggs from a lower altitude, the shells will be more difficult for moisture to penetrate from the get go, so you will need to supply it abundantly.
 
Hatching at high altitude is challenging. I live at 6800 ft and get very few eggs to hatch that are shipped. I put 31 barnevelder eggs into a Sportsman that is 2000 feet lower than me and I MIGHT get 6. Six is a victory in my book. It is, frankly, a very expensive and slow way to build a flock. The reason you are getting so few chicks has to do with oxygenation and the porousness of the shell that is laid at sea level. When you take that poor egg and bring it up into the clouds the baby doesn't get enough oxygen to develop.
So, here's my advice: if you wish to hatch eggs get them from folks close to your altitude. Read the "hatching 101" piece in the learning section and weigh the eggs so that you know if they need humidity or not.
Or, you can do as I do and pick a breed that is rare, the line you wish to build from is at sea level and you find yourself soliciting folks to hatch eggs in their incubators and then mail you the chicks. Trust me, folks think I am a bit touched in the head. Probably am at that.
Somewhere along the way I am trying to find time to build in incubator that will raise the psi enough to get enough oxygen to the baby. Life just seems to be getting in the way right now.
Keep us posted on your progress! Folks at sea level have no idea how lucky they are!
hugs.gif
 
alpinefarm said:
I wouldn't do a dry hatch at altitude. I'd use humidity because, at least if you are getting eggs from a lower altitude, the shells will be more difficult for moisture to penetrate from the get go, so you will need to supply it abundantly.
Click to expand...

I highly recommend reading Hatching Eggs 101.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

The amount of humidity required is dependent on the amount of weight loss of the eggs. Too high of humidity will cause the air cells to not increase sufficiently during the incubation period. The need for the eggs to lose weight to get to the proper size air cell by lock down is the same no matter what elevation the eggs are hatched at. The need for a higher humidity at lock down is not to get the eggs to absorb water but to prevent the egg lining from drying out once the shell has been externally pipped.

The most common cause of shrink wrapping is from people opening the incubator while there are externally pipped eggs in the incubator.

There are problems hatching eggs shipped from lower elevations to higher elevations. There are far more problems simply because the eggs were shipped. Some varieties of eggs simply do not ship well. Very fresh eggs will yield much better results than older eggs.

I am located at approximately 1 mile above sea level. The best success that I had on shipped eggs was 75% success on Maran eggs shipped from a much lower elevation in Arkansas. I also had a 60% hatch from Welsummer eggs shipped in the same package. The difference in the success rates was that some of the Welsummer eggs were more than a couple of days older than the Maran eggs.

I get excellent hatches from my own eggs and what I consider reasonable (50% or higher) hatches from well packaged fresh eggs (1 to 2 days old) shipped eggs that have not had their air cells destroyed by the USPS.

What works for me is 20 -30% humidity prior to lock down and 60% humidity during lock down. The absolute most critical thing for me is to make sure all vents are fully open during the final week of incubation. It is absolutely a no no to close down a vent hole in order to increase the humidity. In my very dry house (less than 10% humidity), 60% humidity is the maximum that I can get for lock down. At the higher elevations the higher that you drive the humidity, the less oxygen will be available to hatching eggs.

These levels of humidity work for me but just because something works for me does not mean it will work for you. I do know my actual humidity levels and must caution that from what I have learned that there are not any reasonably priced digital hygrometers that are accurate throughout the entire humidity range. It is very easy to check the hygrometer at 75% humidity but that does not prove that the hygrometer will be accurate in the range that I incubate at.

Good luck everyone.
 
I have read that- do you think the wet bulb method would work better? Already figured out the hydrometers are inaccurate- I've had both drowned and shrink wrapped eggs.. I do measure air sack development up until lockdown- but I have not tried weighing them yet. Inside humidity stays around 30-35% as I have several large aquariums. But I am several thousand feet higher-



R2elk said:
I highly recommend reading Hatching Eggs 101.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

The amount of humidity required is dependent on the amount of weight loss of the eggs.  Too high of humidity will cause the air cells to not increase sufficiently during the incubation period.  The need for the eggs to lose weight to get to the proper size air cell by lock down is the same no matter what elevation the eggs are hatched at.  The need for a higher humidity at lock down is not to get the eggs to absorb water but to prevent the egg lining from drying out once the shell has been externally pipped.

The most common cause of shrink wrapping is from people opening the incubator while there are externally pipped eggs in the incubator.

There are problems hatching eggs shipped from lower elevations to higher elevations.  There are far more problems simply because the eggs were shipped.  Some varieties of eggs simply do not ship well.  Very fresh eggs will yield much better results than older eggs.

I am located at approximately 1 mile above sea level.  The best success that I had on shipped eggs was 75% success on Maran eggs shipped from a much lower elevation in Arkansas.  I also had a 60% hatch from Welsummer eggs shipped in the same package.  The difference in the success rates was that some of the Welsummer eggs were more than a couple of days older than the Maran eggs.

I get excellent hatches from my own eggs and what I consider reasonable (50% or higher) hatches from well packaged fresh eggs (1 to 2 days old) shipped eggs that have not had their air cells destroyed by the USPS.

What works for me is 20 -30% humidity prior to lock down and 60% humidity during lock down.  The absolute most critical thing for me is to make sure all vents are fully open during the final week of incubation.  It is absolutely a no no to close down a vent hole in order to increase the humidity.  In my very dry house (less than 10% humidity), 60% humidity is the maximum that I can get for lock down.  At the higher elevations the higher that you drive the humidity, the less oxygen will be available to hatching eggs.

These levels of humidity work for me but just because something works for me does not mean it will work for you.  I do know my actual humidity levels and must caution that from what I have learned that there are not any reasonably priced digital hygrometers that are accurate throughout the entire humidity range.  It is very easy to check the hygrometer at 75% humidity but that does not prove that the hygrometer will be accurate in the range that I incubate at.

Good luck everyone.
Click to expand...
 
For accurate weighing of eggs I bought this scale because it can give a much closer idea of weight as compared to my digital kitchen scale.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003STEIYY/?tag=backy-20

To make sure that you are accurate in you weighing you'll also need something like this. This particular one does not have a 100 gram weight, which is something that would be useful. But this gives you an idea:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003STEJAC/?tag=backy-20

I have not tried the wet bulb method yet for measuring humidity, but I think it is indeed much more accurate. I know that my ambient is about 20% this time of year so I go from there.

My next experiment with eggs shipped from lower to higher is going to be to sand some of the exterior. Someone on BYC had that tutorial and I've lost track of it. I will try and find it, but if someone knows where that is would you post it here, please? Basically, you VERY CAREFULLY sand some of the shell off so that more oxygen gets to the baby. The shell is rinsed in a solution of iodine to protect from infection and then incubated.
 
Adelina said:
I have read that- do you think the wet bulb method would work better? Already figured out the hydrometers are inaccurate- I've had both drowned and shrink wrapped eggs.. I do measure air sack development up until lockdown- but I have not tried weighing them yet. Inside humidity stays around 30-35% as I have several large aquariums. But I am several thousand feet higher-
Click to expand...

The one problem with the wet bulb method is if you are using water that contains a lot of dissolved solids (hard water). To my knowledge, the wet bulb method is the only accurate hygrometer if the wick does not get dried out and clogged from all the dissolved solids in the water. Because I have hard water, I switched to distilled water in the incubator. It prevents the fill valve in the water tray of my automatic water system from plugging off.

If you are at higher altitude than I am it is even more critical that you do everything possible to keep the oxygen levels up inside the incubator. This may mean not raising the humidity levels as high as others recommend. The higher you raise the humidity level, the less oxygen the air is capable of carrying. I have had successful hatches with 45% humidity for lock down without shrink wrapping simply by making sure that I did not open the incubator while any eggs were pipped. Those were on chicken eggs. With guinea eggs I do need every bit of the 60% humidity that I can get my incubator up to.

Measuring air sacks and following their development is the best way to monitor whether you need to raise or lower your humidity. If the air sack development is proceeding at the recommended levels, then no matter what a hygrometer reads, your humidity levels are where they should be. If the air sacks are staying too small you need to lower the humidity and if they are growing too fast, the humidity needs to be raised. Weighing is simply the most accurate way to monitor air sack development and is especially beneficial when dealing with dark colored eggs (Marans, etc.) that don't lend themselves well to candling.

If a person feels the need to open the incubator while there are pipped eggs in it, have a spray bottle containing 100°F water in it and mist the air in the open incubator to keep the humidity from dropping. Do not spray the eggs directly.

If what you are doing is working for you then disregard any advice from others and continue doing what works. I changed my methods because my original methods did not work well but my current methods have given me as high as 100% hatches on my own eggs and reasonable success on shipped eggs other than those eggs that I have concluded do not ship well.

Good luck.
 

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