I M so sadd... day 23 and no signs of life...sniff

[sonew123]

sending hatching prayers your way! stay positive....

 

[dab045]

Im on day 24 too. no signs of life yet, but watching your thread of posts, is making me want to wait it out. Good Good Good Luck!!!!

 

[Sachasmom]

I feel your pain! My last hatch was just terrible (5 out of 30!) and two of them when I checked to see if they were fertile on day 23, yeah, still alive. I put them back, but they didn't make it.

I FINALLY got a better incubator than the homemade one, complete with a turner (since I seem to forget to turn mine!) I'm hoping the next batch is better. I have eggs in there now, so far, two chicks and one pip (although I think the pipped one is dead now. Bummer)

I'm having a TERRIBLE time getting my humidity up though. I have a can of water in there, filled the channels and have a wet sock (no sponge, lol) If I'm lucky its at 50%.

So, what am I doing wrong? I put down clothes to catch the ick from when they hatch, is this my problem? Are they absorbing my humidity?

I know, try try try try TRY again. I just feel so guilty about all those chicks that made it all the way to like day 20 and then never hatched!

Fingers crossed yours are just late! Did you loose power at all?

 

[Chicks_N_Horses]

Any sign of life today???

 

[The Wolf Queen]

Come on! Give us an update!!!

 

[courtshep]

I'm on day 23 and I got 3 chicks. I'm still waiting on a few more. Good luck!

 

[Peeper7]

Still nothing as of this morning.... I'll be home from work about 5 to check again
I do feel better thanks to all of you!

Sachasmom, I never lost power.
Of all that could have gone wrong, the most likely suspects were temp spikes and I may have kept the humidity level too low initially. Their air spaces look pretty large. Don't know how anything would be affected. I know they also cooled off a few times during my poor attempts at temp adjustments -- but never lower than 94 for a few hours.

Humidity has not been a problem. It is directly related to the surface area of your water containers.
If you have a 3x3" container, putting more water in it won't help. You need to go up in size to a 4x4" for example.
If your incubator is deep but not wide, let's say you are using a cooler that is 10 x 18" inside perimeter area whatever, you can only fit a 10 x 18" water pan in there. If that is not enough humidity you can add wet sponges on the wire if you have room.
Misting (warm fresh water only) will get it up temporarily.

Then where is your moisture going when you do get it up? Too much ventilation area open. So you would have to close the gaps a little more. There is no other way you would lose your humidity unless you keep opening the unit.

Eventually I will probably get a better incubator, but DARN IT, many people have good luck with these little still-air bators. Learning to adjust them seems to be the worst part. When I first put my eggs in the temp dropped so much for hours and did not seem to be going up fast enough. I think then I turned it up just a bit but that is when I got temp spikes.
Using a turner will increase the temp -- even though you would think the thermostat would still control it but mine did not.

Lesson #1 for me: don't touch the bator controls for at least 24 hrs after adding eggs. Be sure the bator is closed properly (the LG lid does not seat well in my opinion). Don't open even to turn eggs for 24-48 hrs.

Currently my incubators are all working well and steady and my current chicks are doing aerobics in the shells -- especially the few guinea eggs I have. Busy chicks -- I'm lovin it. Getting close to another hatch so getting hopeful again.

Whew, I'm long winded today.... I feel like I'm learning what I'm doing but yet not getting results....bummer.