I see veins!

[hart31]

I know I shouldn't have but I couldn't wait

I was turning eggs last night on day 4 and the candling box was right beside the incubator. The temptation was too great!

I candled 2 spitzhauben eggs and could clearly see veins!

I candled 1 silkie egg whcih was one of only 4 with no obvious cracks from a shipment of 16. The others were frozen and cracked open. I really don't have any expectations for these 4 but you have to try

I could only see what might be a bacterial ring forming.

I will be out of town on days 7, 8, & 9. Should I candle everything the evening of day 6 and get rid of the suspects or take a chance and wait until day 10?

I'm adding about 2 cups of water to the incubator every day and boiling a couple of gallons into the air in an electric frying pan in the room with the incubator and still dropping under 30% humidity in the incubator for part of every day. My neighbor said I could borrow a room humidifier which he hadn't used since his wife passed away. I brought it home but then discovered that it was a dehumidifier!

I think I'll be ok on the chicken eggs but I have a few muscovy eggs in the bator too. I have an old Sears & Roebuck glavanized incubator set up in the basement I will move the muscovy eggs to as soon as I get the temp set. The room humidity is better in the basement and should be easier to keep the bator humidity up too.

 

[sara]

Wait until day 10, you should be able to tell for sure by then

Good luck!

 

[Tuffoldhen]

I'd wait til day 10 too....maybe if you put a small wet sponge in you can get the humidity up ...even in the high 30s would be ok for the first 18 days....

 

[hart31]

Quote:
I'm putting a wet rag every time we turn eggs and getting humidity spikes of to the upper 40s and probably averaging around 40. I should be ok for now. If I can't get the room humidity up somewhat I'll have to take the back off of the incubater and add a sponge of two to the water pan before day 18. I add water to the pan through a tube in the side of the cabinet.

My water pan is just a couple of thicknesses of aluminum foil with the edges turned up to make a shallow pan. I had initially used a 9x13 cake pan but the high sides deflected the air upwards right in front of the fan and caused about a 5 degree temperature variation from one side of the incubator to the other. Using the aluminum foil allowed me to make a larger pan for more suface area with only a 1/2 inch sidewall and solved the temp differential problem.

Still not quite enough surface area though and I can't see the water level in the pan.