Hatching Eggs That Are Hard to Candle

[chickmanna]

I'm thinking I will TRY to only candle at 7, 10 and 18 days. The 10 day would just be a double check on the ones that were iffy at 7 days.

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
Excellent plan. Following the instructions is always a VERY good place to start. More people should do it!

If 40-45% humidity is what your instructions say, then I'd definitely go with that. Keep your humidity steady, and keep simple notes on how your incubation goes. That way, if it works you'll be able to replicate it, and if it doesn't, you can look back through your notes and try to figure out what you might need to do differently the next time.

Some people have great hatches using 20% humidity, and some people have great hatches with 60% humidity. But they are very definitely the exceptions. The majority of people will have the most success with humidity that's kept between 30-45%. People who advocate dry incubating are usually people who have not done so well with those figures, and who've found they do better with a lower overall humidity. But in my opinion (for what it's worth, LOL!) you'd be best to try the standard figures first and see how you get on with them before you need to think about trying dry incubations. When people say 'dry incubations' they're not always talking about the4 same thing anyway. Some people mean they run their incubator totally without water for the first 18 days, but some people mean they run their incubator dry till humidity drops to 20%, then they add just enough water to bring it up to 40%, then they let that slowly run down till the humidity drops to 20% again, then they bring it back up to 40% etc etc.

What works best will depend a lot on local climate and individual bators. Still air bators (without fans) don't whoosh the air about, so it's easier to have a high humidity in them with just a little pan of water, and a lot of the people using the dry incubation method are still air bator owners whohave found that putting any water at all in their bators will over-humidify their eggs. Some people live in such humid climates that they just don't need to add water, so while technically they are running a dry incubation inasmuch as they aren't physically adding any water to the bator themselves, the humidity in their bator could still be as high as 40% anyway...

What kind of bator have you got anyway? Still air or fan assisted?

And as for what I do with my incubations... After years of using cheaper fiddly bators, I eventually treated myself to a fancypants Brinsea Octagon with full humidity control. I just set it for 45% humidity and leave it there for the full 18 days till lockdown, and that's perfect for me. I always weigh my eggs to check on moisture loss, and I've only had to adjust my humidity once, when my eggs weren't losing weight fast enough during the last few days. Also, the one time I thought I'd try a dry incubation (with my own unimportant eggs, just to see what would happen) I had 30-35% humidity for 18 days and I ended up with a bunch of very dead and totally dried out little embryos. Obviously that's not to say that dry incubation's all rubbish, or that it won't work for you. Just that it definitely doesn't work for me!

Hope all that might help you a bit!

 

[cmom]

I agree with the other posts. I candle at day 10 and when I put the eggs in the hatcher on day 18. Any at day 18 I'm not sure of I mark. I have been surprised a couple of times as some eggs I thought were duds hatched. They were a little late but they hatched. I experimented with my humidity and now I keep my humidity around 35% during incubation (for the first 18 days) then raise it to around 75% for the last 3 days. My hatches went from around 60% to 95% to 100%.

 

[chickmanna]

Thanks for all the good advice. I have a Hovabator 1588, has a fan and preset thermostat. I've checked it out and thermostat keeps it between 99 and 100 (without eggs) and prescribed amount of water kept humidity at 40% (again, without eggs). As Gypsy07 says, I think my best bet this time is to follow the instructions!!