help me

[what did I do]

This is my first time incubating eggs and I don't know what I'm doing. We have a hova-bator with a turner that holds 42 eggs. We have it set at 100 degrees. We candled the eggs at one and two weeks and have removed 7 eggs - the chicken/rooster ratio wasn't great but this is just for fun and learning. My two questions are. One day, Sunday, the temp got up to 103 for we don't know how long. Did we kill them? We candler them and there seemed to be movement in most of them still. This was at 14 days. Next, what day do we remove them from the Turner? We put them in in the late afternoon on March 26? A little more info about us. We got our first chickens a year ago - 60 of them. Some were meat birds and the others were layers. We have 30 layers now. We have also ordered 100 more chicks for this year that we should get about the time these eggs hatch.

 

[Lucyfur2002]

You will need to take them out of the turner on friday night. That would be day 18. The temp spike probably didn't hurt them but just for future reference you have to check the temp constantly. I check mine at least every 2 hours. Also humidity is your next enemy/friend. To much humidity during those first 18 days may kill your chicks on those last 3 days. DO NOT follow the instructions that comes with the incubator for the amound of water that you keep in the incubator, if you do you will probably drown most of your chicks. There is an article on here somewhere about "Dry Incubation" that I am sure will be helpful to you. It really helped me considerably. I hope you have some really good luck!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Welcome to the forum! Glad you joined us!

A temporary temperature spike is not a good thing but is not necessarily fatal. It happens more often than we would like. What you are seeing is air temperature. The egg itself is a lot more dense and it takes a lot longer for the core temperature of the egg to actually change. So I'd just keep on as if nothing happened. Often you will be fine.

Many people get it wrong when they count the days. It's logical that day 1 should be the day you put them in the incubator, but that is wrong. An egg does not have 24 hours worth of develpoment 2 seconds or 2 hours after it is put in the incubator. It takes 24 hours for it to have a day's worth of development. One way to remember it is that the day of the week you set them is the day of the week they should hatch. Since you set them on a Monday, they should hatch on a Monday. And lockdown should be after 18 days of development. So, since you set them on March 26, lockdown should be about the same time of day on Friday April 13.

This hatch after 21 days of development is theoretical. It often does not happen that way. Many different things like heredity, humidity, how you stored them before you incubated them, how old they were, and relative size can make a difference, but the big difference maker is the average incubating temperature. If you incubator is running a little warm, the eggs can actually be pipping when you go into lockdown. That happened to me before I adjusted the incubating temperature. I still had 70% hatch. If your incubator is running a bit cool, they can be that much late. Especially with your first hatch with the incubator, you don't know what will happen. It can be nerve-wracking.

The main thing with lockdown is that you need to go into lockdown and raise the humidity before they pip. For the first time with your incubator, that can be a little uncertain. So until you get some history with your incubator, I suggest you try to get lockdown pretty close to the theoretical time. You can adjust that if you wish after you get some experience with your incubator.

Correct humidity during incubation is something that is different for each of us. We have different incubators and different conditions. What works for me might not work for someone else. My first time, I followed the instructions that came with the incubator and even with the temperature problems, had a 70% hatch. The humidity inside the incubator can vary quite a bit with the same reservoir filled depending on ambient humidity. My humidity varied from the mid-30's to mid-40's with the same reservoir filled during my last incubation. What I suggest is to try something and be fairly consistent throughout incubation. Then analyze your hatch to see if you need to change something. That's why your instructions probably said to do a test hatch with inexpensive eggs the first time to work out the bugs.

 

[what did I do]

Thank you, it just seems to be going so quick. The kids are moving the older chickens out of the big coop and putting them into the little coop. Now to clean the coop and get out the brooder that hasn't been used in years. The brooded was my late MIL's. I'm sure she is just tossing and turning in her grave with all the fun we are having with these chickens.

 

[what did I do]

Thanks for the info, you gals are great. My eggs were laid on the 25 and 26 of March. So, we started incubation very soon after they were laid.

 

[Ridgerunner]

My wife will be glad to know you think we gals are great!!!!!

 

[what did I do]

That's too funny Ridgerunner. I'll have to look closer and change my thinking of who has chickens.

 

[what did I do]

Just put the eggs in lock down (that is what you call it when you take the eggs out of the turner, right?).
We candler them once again. One wasn't as dark as the others but we left it in just in case it was alive.

 

[mohillbilly]

That's too funny Ridgerunner. I'll have to look closer and change my thinking of who has chickens.

yea there is several of us guy's on here....

 

[what did I do]

yea there is several of us guy's on here....

 

I think it's great that there are so many men who take an interest in chickens. My husband thinks I'm crazy for getting an incubator and even crazier for using it. He grew up with chickens but his only job was to clean the coop. He had nothing to do with the chickens. He wanted the chickens and helps every now and then but it is mostly up to the kids and I. We do like the money we get from our eggs and the kids love the birds so we are increasing our flock. My husband says he has never seen a chicken hatch