I-25 Egg Train

[lgc1970]

Thanks for the reply. I started my incubator with 60 eggs on the 16th. The eggs are Welsummer, Ameraucana, Brahma, Wyandotte, Bantam Orp, and a few mix breed eggs.

I have placed the forced-air 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 doesn't 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. And I have a fill tube into the water reservoir in the incubator to reduce how often it is opened.

I candled on day 7 (yesterday) with my 1000 lumen flashlight candler, found 10 clears and 7 blood rings which leaves 43 eggs left for hatch day. The air sac appeared to be about 1/6 - 1/7 of the egg for the 43 eggs, which seems good for 7 days of incubating. The remaining revealed moving embryos and healthy 'spider webs', I even saw a very faint and tiny speck beating away on a couple! VERY COOL!

I am going to follow a research assignment by a college researcher to add a small amount of medical grade soda lime in a small cheese cloth bag every couple of days starting on day 9 (tomorrow) to remove excess CO2 from the airspace in the incubator. 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.

Have you had many late term deaths? Have you checked for shrink wrap? Do you have a lot of ventilation holes or few? Is your incubator on the floor or raised? Do you map the air sacs or do you weigh?

Thanks for the info. You make me believe that there is hope for a successful hatch!

 

[Pozees]

Oh wow, I had not read of medical grade soda lime, I can't wait to hear how you do! Where did you find the research? I had heard of adding O2 but never removing CO2, makes sense though.

 

[lgc1970]

Here is the abstract portion that anyone can get to regarding CO2 removal during incubation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3110364

The research only took out CO2.

If you are interested in your own incubator addition... I have found medical grade soda lime at vet supply retailers in 3lb bags for $8, but you can also get a non-color changing soda lime from scuba dive suppliers in 25 - 50lb containers (I did not look further so I am just assuming that you could get smaller amounts). The scuba variety is for rebreathers and does not off gas the small amount of ammonia like the medical grade, but the eggs will not have enough days to build up lasting effects from the small amount of ammonia that they will be exposed to during the 12 - 13 days.

I also found research that suggests high humidity at high altitude does not affect hatch rates as it does at lower elevations. It seems that the thin air allows the eggs to over-breath and the excess humidity is not a problem. As other research done at high elevations was performed at a 70% humidity level with no effect on hatch rates. So, I am going to allow the humidity ranges to spike if it occurs.

I will post again once my experiment is complete.

 

[bumpershoot]

Igc1970 What you have found is exciting! Would you be so kind as to post what you are doing for your experiment over on the high altitude hatching forum? Some of them might not be reading the I-25 thread. It's here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/194395/hatching-at-high-altitude/30#post_13538990

Your article answered some of my questions regarding CO2 scrubbing during incubation. It means that I don't have to push oxygen I only have to scrub CO2! Yea! So much easier!

 

[Pozees]

Here is the abstract portion that anyone can get to regarding CO2 removal during incubation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3110364

The research only took out CO2.

If you are interested in your own incubator addition... I have found medical grade soda lime at vet supply retailers in 3lb bags for $8, but you can also get a non-color changing soda lime from scuba dive suppliers in 25 - 50lb containers (I did not look further so I am just assuming that you could get smaller amounts). The scuba variety is for rebreathers and does not off gas the small amount of ammonia like the medical grade, but the eggs will not have enough days to build up lasting effects from the small amount of ammonia that they will be exposed to during the 12 - 13 days.

I also found research that suggests high humidity at high altitude does not affect hatch rates as it does at lower elevations. It seems that the thin air allows the eggs to over-breath and the excess humidity is not a problem. As other research done at high elevations was performed at a 70% humidity level with no effect on hatch rates. So, I am going to allow the humidity ranges to spike if it occurs.

I will post again once my experiment is complete.

I appreciate the link to the article, thank you! How much soda lime will you be using? Based on what you've said, I assume the soda lime has to be changed every couple of days. I have a Sportsman and set eggs every week, if I begin adding soda lime will it have a negative effect on newly set eggs?

Sorry to all, we should probably move this over to the high altitude thread, which I had completely forgotten existed, thanks for the reminder bumpershoot

 

[bumpershoot]

Sorry to all, we should probably move this over to the high altitude thread, which I had completely forgotten existed, thanks for the reminder bumpershoot

I so look forward to the day I don't consider a few eggs hatching out of 30+ to be a victory. Plus, the nerd in me finds this fascinating.

 

[Pozees]

I so look forward to the day I don't consider a few eggs hatching out of 30+ to be a victory. Plus, the nerd in me finds this fascinating.

Ditto on both

 

[lgc1970]

Okay, I will move this over to the High Altitude thread by tomorrow, but I have even more interesting news...

I marked a few eggs to relook at today, because they were sleeping at the time or had an odd extra dot or just did not look quite right. I am incubating a mix of some dark and colored eggs, invariably harder to see through eggs ( Welsummer, Ameraucana, Wyandottes, Brahma, Bantam Orp, FBCM mix). So, I am rechecking today to make sure everything is going well while I am putting in my 2oz portion of Soda Lime wrapped in cheese cloth similar to the research article for the removal of the excess CO2. Well, I started my 7 Wyandotte eggs and when I candled I found 2 clear, 5 left in bator and marked all for recheck because they did not look quite right. Well, I rechecked today and found out now that those are 5 twin eggs, but 1 with no movement and a blood ring forming. I am going to eggtopsy the ones that are clear or die along the way, and I will take pictures then. I will share what I find and share my results for High Altitude incubating adjustments that I have made.

But 4 TWIN EGGS!!!!!

Maybe that makes up for the 3 that are gone...

But now what. I have read up on a poultry guy named Bernard, who was studied at Ohio State, because he incubated 10 eggs and got 18 chicks back in 1965. The study even states that his odds are extreme so no one should expect anything like that. So, now what do I do. I read a couple of threads where others had twins going and watched a lady assist the hatch out of 3 live, 1 dead chicks from 2 eggs. It seems that most helped the twins during the hatch at least a little.

High Altitude AND Twins! What are the odds?!?! Anyone have any ideas?

How many threads should I be on?

 

[bumpershoot]

High Altitude AND Twins! What are the odds?!?!

Anyone have any ideas?

How many threads should I be on?

Well, at a minimum it needs to the "America's Got Talent" thread!!!!

 

[Mtn Margie]

Holy cow! Start your own and that way you only have to read one. I am sure a lot of people will tune in for this episode!