I just put my first 26 eggs in a borrowed incubator

[HickoryHollow]

I am scared to death, have no idea what I am doing, totally lost, but oh, what the hell! lol
I started by reading the instructions to the incubator (which begin) if all else fails, read the directions. That is pretty much my life's motto, so this should work out just fine!

 

[azelgin]

My best hatch success was the first one I did. Now that I know what I'm doing, the results are not as good. What's up with that?

 

[sonjab314]

Thats what this site is for

Feel free to ask anything and Im sure someone will be able to help you along.

 

[pogmobum]

Sa

Thats what this site is for      Feel free to ask anything and Im sure someone will be able to help you along.

Same here ask and you shall receive lol

 

[HickoryHollow]

Thanks everyone, I am sure I will have questions. I read everything posted about incubating on BYC and think I have the basics down. I might have screwed up right off the bat though. I put the eggs in after I thought the heat in the incubator was regulated pretty well tuesday evening. It held right at 100 until I went to bed. I got up the next morning for work and went to turn them. The incubator was up to 103. I am hoping since it wasn't for too long, and it was only the first day, it didn't cook anything. I took the lid off right away, turned the eggs, then turned the temp down again. When I got home from work last evening, it was still holding right at 100, so now we are good. Hope it wasn't too big of a mistake!

 

[Spongegirl]

What kind of incubator do you have? I have a little giant and have found that the dry incubation method is too dry. I have been worried so death about drowning chicks that they have been too dry when hatch day comes. This is my first year of incubating so I am also just learning. I have a flock from last year that is giving me "practice eggs"...out of like 40 of those, I have 3 chicks to show for it. I did have a good hatch of some shipped eggs from show quality birds and a new hatch incubating right now from the same seller. I don't have an auto turner so I think I will turn the eggs more frequently from twice a day to three times. I lay the eggs on the side and not in a egg carton. I don't know but it seems like to me my problems are all about humidity. Here's another thing...the dry method doesn't say a word about. If you have an incubator full of eggs versus just a few (in the small styro kinds) the dry method might be ok. With just a few eggs, too much moisture is taken from those few eggs and water in the cells need to be added to keep from pulling so much so fast from the eggs. Happy hatching!

 

[Mommy6]

My best hatch success was the first one I did. Now that I know what I'm doing, the results are not as good. What's up with that?

This happened to me too... 100% of my developed shipped eggs hatched healthy chicks my first try... 2nd hatch several made it to lockdown and several did not hatch and 3 or 4 died after hatch leaving me with 5 healthy out of about 25 eggs... 3rd hatch, I had 2 hatch and only one survived our of 12

. Now I am on hatch number 4 due April 6th and 5 due April 15th.. my 2 biggest hatches containing a combo of 81 of my girls eggs between 2 bators as of today, it will be interesting to see how it goes. This may make or break my ideas of hatching more in the future, lol.



Happy hatching!!!

 

[pogmobum]

I think the more people learn about hatching the more you tend to tweak things to try and get perfect temp humidity and so on, i just bought a digital r-com bator. You press a button turn it on refill the whenever it beeps at me and forget about it lol 95% - 100% hatch rate every time.