I posted on the I-25 Egg Train thread regarding Colorado Hatching and was asked to post here on the High Altitude thread as my information is very much about high altitude incubating and hatching. I am at EL8150 (that is supposed to be high...). So, here is my story up to this point and I will try to keep you updated on my progress.
I started my forced-air incubator with 60 eggs on the 16th. The eggs are Welsummer, Ameraucana, Brahma, Wyandotte, Bantam Orp, and a few mix breed eggs including a single FBCM and 2 OE. They include shipped eggs, picked up eggs, high altitude eggs (EL8600, EL6200, EL5750), low altitude eggs (EL4600, EL1400, EL 800), but alas no white shelled eggs.
I have placed the incubator in a very small room (7'x7' - office) on a desk. I have a small oil heater going in the corner, as this room somehow does not have any heat of its own... and a humidifier. The incubator right now is working good with a temp range of 99.7 - 100.1 from 4 thermometers (2 are old school mercury ones that are within 0.2 degrees of each other) all sort of averaged; and hygrometer readings from 48 - 55% in the incubator. I have a fill tube into the water reservoir in the incubator to reduce how often it is opened. The incubator has a 'deck' I formed out of hardware cloth to keep the eggs elevated off the floor (about 2 - 3 inches) to allow for good airflow around the eggs and to remove a chance of heat transfer between the floor of the incubator and the eggs [like an air matt keeps a sleeping bag off the cold ground]. I am also weighing the eggs to ensure that they lose the appropriate amount of water weight during the incubation period.
I candled on Day 7 with my 1000 lumen flashlight candler, found 10 clears, 7 blood rings, and 9 questionable, which leaves 43 eggs so far left for hatch day (but probably closer to the 34). The traced air sac lines appeared to be about 1/6 - 1/7 of the egg for the 43 eggs, which seems good for Day 7 of incubating. They have lost a range of 3 - 5% of their weight. The remaining 34 revealed moving embryos and healthy 'spider webs', I even saw a very faint and tiny speck beating away in some of the eggs! VERY COOL!
I am following research that added MEDICAL GRADE soda lime (this is the grade of soda lime that does not have caustic hydrogen peroxide as a byproduct; that type is used by commercial scrubbers to remove CO2 from a chemical process *NOT GOOD*) to remove CO2 from the incubator environment. The researcher found that the excess CO2 was most of the problem with incubating at elevations greater than 7500. Not even excess O2, which can cause fainting and dizziness was an issue. Adding O2 to an incubator was found by similar research to be costly and less effective. This research specifically used soda lime for CO2 removal and had a +70% hatch rate at EL2800m or EL9185ft. The abstract to the research gives a pretty good summary and can be found at the following link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3110364
I will add 2oz of medical grade soda lime in a small cheese cloth bag every couple of days this time starting on Day 9 to remove excess CO2 from the airspace in the incubator. You should wear gloves when handling the soda lime as it can irritate the skin and eyes. There is one other form of soda lime available that could be used for this purpose. It is used by scuba divers for rebreathers and does not off-gas the small amount of ammonia, but this seems to only be found in large quantities (25 - 50lb containers). The medical grade soda lime is available from vet suppliers in 3lb and larger quantities. The cheese cloth is being used for a couple of reasons: it will allow a constant air exchange, places the soda lime directly on the bottom of the incubator (because CO2 is heavier) where the CO2 will be, and this form of soda lime also comes in pellets which will easily stay in the cheese cloth bag. The bag got a faint purple glow by the end of Day 10 and I changed the soda lime altogether by Day 11. I will change the bag every other day until hatch day. A byproduct of soda lime is also water (humidity) so the humidity up to and including hatch day should not be an issue during bag exchanges since the soda lime will be a contributor as well.
On Day 9 I went ahead and candled the questionable eggs, I was so stressed about not knowing what was going on in those eggs that I just did it; 5 more removed, but now only 3 questions, and 1 is a keeper! The little buggers were moving a little more slowly and I was getting very concerned. Should the embryos be moving slowly, quickly, or somewhere in between at Day 9?
Well, I may have answered my own question. Day 11, another planned candling day, brought such incredible anticipation... I rushed everyone out the door this morning and headed back to the incubator to candle and weigh. Well, the embryos now noticeably almost pinkie sized in the LF eggs were moving a fair bit. Quickly, but not jumpy. They are now very active and obviously gaining size (that's what I remember
). The air sacs are not too much bigger. They are now down about 4 - 6% in total weight loss and I believe that the 3 are definitely no longer ... but I am leaving them in the bator for a little while more.
I have read additional research that states incubation done at high elevations is assisted by humidity. Much of the research was performed with the incubators running at 70 - 74% the entire incubation period with no affect on hatch rates. I am not going to stress out over high humidity levels, instead I am going to watch for the eggs to lose about 10 - 12% of their weight by Day 18. The extra humidity should also encourage more oxygen to be exchanged with the egg because oxygen is attracted to water.
I am going to post again on my next candle days, and will post on hatch day, too. This is my first incubation in a long time and my first at this high altitude (EL8150); which is why I have done research. But I have realized several things already: next time the soda lime goes in on Day 5, never trust the power company in the mountains (I have had 4 power outages so far; 1 that lasted 5hrs!), eggs shipped during a blizzard probably will have issues, and wiggly air sacs from shipping are just as problematic, maybe more, as detached air sacs.
Additional fun thing to know, most plants off-gas CO2 for extended periods during the night. You can discover this for yourself if you walk into a forrest at night... you walk in awake, but are soon very tired. This tiredness is from increasing levels of CO2. A few plants do not go through a period of extended CO2 off-gassing including a house plant named Mother-In-Law's Tongue (a.k.a. Snake Plant
) and another one called an Areca Palm.
Okay, I know this is long and there is a ton of information in here, but if you have any questions feel free to post a reply question or PM me.
