How does a DRY HATCH work?

[Painted Calls]

Yours just started laying! You can't expect them to be broody already?! Besides, let the incubus of viral plague incubate them. Then she'll be good for something besides staring into my soul.

They need assistance. Patient Zero isn't going to assist.

 

[ColtHandorf]

They need assistance. Patient Zero isn't going to assist.

You don't think so?

 

[shawluvsbirds]

They need assistance. Patient Zero isn't going to assist.

Mine hatch themselves out under a broody much better than in my incubator. And mama calls do in fact sometimes help them out. And.. just like us they sometimes jump the gun too. Ask WV!

 

[WVduckchick]

Mine hatch themselves out under a broody much better than in my incubator. And mama calls do in fact sometimes help them out. And.. just like us they sometimes jump the gun too. Ask WV!

Since we’ve already derailed this thread, I’ll throw this out

I found this one dead next to a broody duck. It’s obvious that she tried to help it hatch. Much of the shell was missing, though it looks like it started on its own.

 

[Painted Calls]

You don't think so?

I know so.

 

[Painted Calls]

Mine hatch themselves out under a broody much better than in my incubator. And mama calls do in fact sometimes help them out. And.. just like us they sometimes jump the gun too. Ask WV!

Oh I know they do. I've also seen how many times y'all take eggs from them and finish incubating them.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Mine hatch themselves out under a broody much better than in my incubator. And mama calls do in fact sometimes help them out. And.. just like us they sometimes jump the gun too. Ask WV!

Mama in this case is a cochin ballooning with olattitude

 

[ColtHandorf]

olattitude

 

[The Moonshiner]

Folks aren’t going to change lingo just to suit you. It’s on you to understand what the lingo actually means. Eggs contain moisture, so zero humidity could likely never be achieved. But the incubator floor can still be dry.

Kinda like “lockdown”. Some folks take “lockdown” to mean absolutely zero opening of the incubator lid during the final 3 days. Lockdown, to me, is the days to increase humidity and the chicks hatch. But the term has been around and will stay around. Kind of the point of threads like this!
Research everything!

Now I'm totally confused. I thought lockdown was not letting my eggs out of the incubator because of covid.

 

[Ebony Rose]

Yours just started laying! You can't expect them to be broody already?! Besides, let the incubus of viral plague incubate them. Then she'll be good for something besides staring into my soul.

In all of my years raising chickens, I've found the best broody hens I've had followed a pattern;

The 'smart girl' becomes a started pullet. Three to four weeks of this painful nonsense of pushing a mountain out of the eye of a needle and she decides to go broody instead.

So... they start gathering and hiding the eggs of her eggs and those of her sisters in some corner or another and screams at anyone or anything that dares to approach. Some three weeks later, this same hissing, biting hen can be seen in the front yard with the dominant rooster, cooing and softly clucking as she shows off her young and ensures them the safety of their place in the flock.

Three to four weeks later (sometimes longer), she weens the chicks and enjoys her broody hormones that cause her to not lay eggs... and then... a few weeks later, after she's regained her weight and condition, it happens. She lays an egg. She might even lay three or four eggs...

Now being a smart girl, and remembering how she got out of this painful job last time... she decides to do it again! My current 'smart girl' has only let me peek at three newborn chicks this time, but she's still sitting on the nest so I'm assuming she's still 'baking' a few more eggs before she considers herself done.

She's on her third round this year. She's such a smart girl.