I design and build my own incubators.

[Fishkeeper]

Well, look at it this way.
You've come onto a poultry forum and said, basically, "you know how you're supposed to do this thing one way? And if you don't do it this way, it fails? Well, I'm doing it the other way, and it works."
It's not unreasonable for people to think something is strange here.

How about this: why does yours work? How does a lower temperature than you're supposed to use, and a lower humidity than you're supposed to use, still work? I could see how a lower temperature could result in less evaporation, so that makes some level of sense, but why doesn't it affect the growth of the chicks?
What are your hatch rates?
How long do you end up incubating the eggs for before they hatch?
How did you figure out that you could do this in the first place?

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

Well, look at it this way.
You've come onto a poultry forum and said, basically, "you know how you're supposed to do this thing one way? And if you don't do it this way, it fails? Well, I'm doing it the other way, and it works."
It's not unreasonable for people to think something is strange here.

How about this: why does yours work? How does a lower temperature than you're supposed to use, and a lower humidity than you're supposed to use, still work? I could see how a lower temperature could result in less evaporation, so that makes some level of sense, but why doesn't it affect the growth of the chicks?
What are your hatch rates?
How long do you end up incubating the eggs for before they hatch?
How did you figure out that you could do this in the first place?

Ok first off humidity is an Incubator thing not a hatching thing and was not a thing until the Styrofoam incubators came out and the tall cabinet incubators came out that need humidity to distribute heat throughout the incubator that is the only reason for humidity!

The reason I run a lower temp it gives me a more wiggle room so if for some reason the heat goes up it doesn't over heat the egg and the chicks come out stronger and healthier.

My hatch rate is that every chick that made it to peep the inner membrane and taken off the turner and put into the hatch area hatched.

And honestly I have never worried about anything that goes on inside of the egg the only thing that matters is that the egg starts that it makes it to peeping the membrane and it hatches everything else is mute since I let the chick let me know when it is ready to hatch I never counted days to hatch

 

[-BOGGS-]

Suscribed

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

Well, look at it this way.
You've come onto a poultry forum and said, basically, "you know how you're supposed to do this thing one way? And if you don't do it this way, it fails? Well, I'm doing it the other way, and it works."
It's not unreasonable for people to think something is strange here.

How about this: why does yours work? How does a lower temperature than you're supposed to use, and a lower humidity than you're supposed to use, still work? I could see how a lower temperature could result in less evaporation, so that makes some level of sense, but why doesn't it affect the growth of the chicks?
What are your hatch rates?
How long do you end up incubating the eggs for before they hatch?
How did you figure out that you could do this in the first place?

On the figuring out part I grew up in southern Nevada back when the humidity was always around 12% except during monsoon season in the late summer and 1975 was my first try at incubating using a galvinized incubator that used a 120 w blue bulb and nothing else plus our chickens and geese never had a problem hatching out their own chicks and infact humidity was not even a subject until I moved to oklahoma ! We use to incubate using the dehydrator and a 100 w bulb

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

Well, look at it this way.
You've come onto a poultry forum and said, basically, "you know how you're supposed to do this thing one way? And if you don't do it this way, it fails? Well, I'm doing it the other way, and it works."
It's not unreasonable for people to think something is strange here.

How about this: why does yours work? How does a lower temperature than you're supposed to use, and a lower humidity than you're supposed to use, still work? I could see how a lower temperature could result in less evaporation, so that makes some level of sense, but why doesn't it affect the growth of the chicks?
What are your hatch rates?
How long do you end up incubating the eggs for before they hatch?
How did you figure out that you could do this in the first place?

If disagreed with all that you really my not like how I clean eggs before going into the incubator and how long the sit in an incubator without turning!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Subscribed!

@NomoreCSIncubating Have you ever hatched duck eggs with this method?
I asked a similar question earlier, about how people make the temperature fluctuations so important when no bird has a thermometer at "hand" and was run down here…
I have not hatched out anything yet (apart from bad colds) and i want to build my incubator/hatcher myself, not buy a ready made online… And the picture that i have in my mind is a cabinet with a glass or plexiglass door, two compartments one for incubation, second one to hatch.
I like to learn more about your incubators and hatching method. Keeping the temperature slightly lower than recommended sounds very logical to me, if there's a quirk you have more wiggle room and won't produce accident balut so fast.

Oh, by the way: Welcome to BYC! It feels as if you have always been here!

 

[Fishkeeper]

Ok first off humidity is an Incubator thing not a hatching thing and was not a thing until the Styrofoam incubators came out and the tall cabinet incubators came out that need humidity to distribute heat throughout the incubator that is the only reason for humidity!

The reason I run a lower temp it gives me a more wiggle room so if for some reason the heat goes up it doesn't over heat the egg and the chicks come out stronger and healthier.

My hatch rate is that every chick that made it to peep the inner membrane and taken off the turner and put into the hatch area hatched.

And honestly I have never worried about anything that goes on inside of the egg the only thing that matters is that the egg starts that it makes it to peeping the membrane and it hatches everything else is mute since I let the chick let me know when it is ready to hatch I never counted days to hatch

If humidity isn't a hatching thing, why is "your humidity is probably too low" the thing that everyone suggests if someone gets shrink-wrapped chicks? Why is everyone concerned about not opening an incubator too much during hatching in case the chicks shrink-wrap from the dry air? Do they develop differently if the humidity is low the whole time? If you incubate chicks this way, are they immune to shrinkwrapping?

Hatch rate is out of all the eggs you put in the incubator. If you have 3 chicks pip and 3 chicks hatch, but you incubated 20 eggs, that's not so great. I'm assuming that's not the case, but that answer doesn't really answer my question.

Next time you do a batch, you should count how many days it takes. I'm curious how much the lower temperatures slow their growth.

On the figuring out part I grew up in southern Nevada back when the humidity was always around 12% except during monsoon season in the late summer and 1975 was my first try at incubating using a galvinized incubator that used a 120 w blue bulb and nothing else plus our chickens and geese never had a problem hatching out their own chicks and infact humidity was not even a subject until I moved to oklahoma ! We use to incubate using the dehydrator and a 100 w bulb

I can see how this would lead to this discovery, but you know the air humidity isn't the same as the humidity under a chicken, right? The moisture they give off through their skin, and any moisture retained in the nesting material, plus the moisture given off by the eggs, raises the humidity around them.

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

If humidity isn't a hatching thing, why is "your humidity is probably too low" the thing that everyone suggests if someone gets shrink-wrapped chicks? Why is everyone concerned about not opening an incubator too much during hatching in case the chicks shrink-wrap from the dry air? Do they develop differently if the humidity is low the whole time? If you incubate chicks this way, are they immune to shrinkwrapping?

Hatch rate is out of all the eggs you put in the incubator. If you have 3 chicks pip and 3 chicks hatch, but you incubated 20 eggs, that's not so great. I'm assuming that's not the case, but that answer doesn't really answer my question.

Next time you do a batch, you should count how many days it takes. I'm curious how much the lower temperatures slow their growth.




I can see how this would lead to this discovery, but you know the air humidity isn't the same as the humidity under a chicken, right? The moisture they give off through their skin, and any moisture retained in the nesting material, plus the moisture given off by the eggs, raises the humidity around them.

Hate to break it to you but hens do not sweat or bring water in their beaks to wet down the eggs.

As far as hatch rate is based on that every egg is exactly the same and they aren't. If 20 eggs do not start is that the eggs or the incubator if I put in 150 eggs in and 20 do not start and along the way 10 stop and 120 eggs hatch how exactly does that reflect how the incubator worked?

As far a shrink wrap it could very well be the incubator not humidity.

Remember with a Styrofoam incubator the hatch rate has been o-85% on average

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

Subscribed!

@NomoreCSIncubating Have you ever hatched duck eggs with this method?
I asked a similar question earlier, about how people make the temperature fluctuations so important when no bird has a thermometer at "hand" and was run down here…
I have not hatched out anything yet (apart from bad colds) and i want to build my incubator/hatcher myself, not buy a ready made online… And the picture that i have in my mind is a cabinet with a glass or plexiglass door, two compartments one for incubation, second one to hatch.
I like to learn more about your incubators and hatching method. Keeping the temperature slightly lower than recommended sounds very logical to me, if there's a quirk you have more wiggle room and won't produce accident balut so fast.

Oh, by the way: Welcome to BYC! It feels as if you have always been here!

the incubators are real easy to make you can make one and 2 brooders out of a sheet of 3/4 plywood and a few parts that you can get from a hardware store the only thing needed online is a 4" 110 cfm fan. I can make one in about an hour.

 

[NomoreCSIncubating]

If humidity isn't a hatching thing, why is "your humidity is probably too low" the thing that everyone suggests if someone gets shrink-wrapped chicks? Why is everyone concerned about not opening an incubator too much during hatching in case the chicks shrink-wrap from the dry air? Do they develop differently if the humidity is low the whole time? If you incubate chicks this way, are they immune to shrinkwrapping?

Hatch rate is out of all the eggs you put in the incubator. If you have 3 chicks pip and 3 chicks hatch, but you incubated 20 eggs, that's not so great. I'm assuming that's not the case, but that answer doesn't really answer my question.

Next time you do a batch, you should count how many days it takes. I'm curious how much the lower temperatures slow their growth.




I can see how this would lead to this discovery, but you know the air humidity isn't the same as the humidity under a chicken, right? The moisture they give off through their skin, and any moisture retained in the nesting material, plus the moisture given off by the eggs, raises the humidity around them.

Plus to try to better explain the difference in the incubators. my incubators are 4.25 CF it uses a large capacity fan (110 cfm) that pushes all that air into a small heated area with a restricted out flow into the incubator to keep the air inside the heated space to dry the air this allow the incubator to maintain its low humidity even if the door is open for a period of time.

So unlike a high humidity incubator that you have to keep the door closed to maintain your high humidity I do not have that restriction of use.

Here is the thing with my incubators I put eggs in and take out eggs that dont start or those that have stopped and put fresh eggs in and take chicks out as soon as they hatch thats it.