How many people use the dry incubation method?

[shelleyd2008]

I don't know if they will or not. I was there last week, and didn't hear anything about it. I won't be there, as I have a 4 year old batman to take out to beg!!

I have hatched all mine with the 'technically' dry method, but this last one was quail, and I was told to do them the same as chickens. It did not work. I had 3 chicks total out of 38 eggs, so that is one reason why I was asking. Also my last chick hatch had 5 that hatched total, out of 6 eggs, but still. One had membrane stuck all over its face, one had a piece of shell stuck to it forever, 2 that I brought in from a silly hen that left her nest at day 14 both had curled toes, and one of those died. Plus that one needed to be helped, because the membrane was too tough for it to get out. So I was wondering who actually uses it successfully. My humidity is usually about the same the whole time, with a bit higher near hatch time. Not by choice, I just can't get it any higher.

You were the one interested about the goats right? Last week they were going for maybe $1 a pound. Not sure if they were the meat or milk goats, as it was my dad watching it, and not me.

 

[skeeter9]

I have used it successfully many times. I started out not using it and had crummy hatches, so I did some research and tried the dry method, with great results. I don't know off the top of my head which sites I used to troubleshoot, but I do know that they were university sites. For me, I found that my eggs weren't losing enough moisture during incubation, so my aircells weren't increasing in size appropriately and my chicks were drowning when they pipped, were born kinda mushy, had yolk hanging out, etc . The lower humidity levels of dry incubation helped to keep the aircell sizes in the appropriate range and my chicks have been hatching very well. I know that there's more to it than aircell size, but that's one thing we can see when we candle, and there's no other way for us to monitor the moisture loss in our developing eggs, so that's one of the main things I look at.

Does this help at all?

Sorry, I can't address the quail hatching issue - I haven't hatched quail.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Yeah I have had pretty good hatches with my chickens using it, but the quail was the big problem. I was told to use the same settings as for my chickens, and it didn't work.

 

[skeeter9]

Maybe if you start a new post and put something about dry hatching quail in the title?

 

[snowydiamonds]

My little experiment worked...at least for one chick tonight...