aliciaplus3
Free Ranging
Ok I am still a novice here, I got my first Incubator in November of 2016 as a birthday gift. Of course the first thing I did was plug it in, insert eggs and then come to this site and start reading, I read most threads that I could find that pertained to incubation. I watched, lurked and read. My first hatch I set 17 and hatched 9, so I felt pretty good about myself. I had followed the incubator guidelines and altered several things based on reviews for the incubator I found online.
Then I kept reading and kept hearing about the "dry" incubation method and how much better hatches people got with it, So the next run in January I decided to try it, I started with 36 eggs and tried to keep the bator humidity at 30%. We hatched 17, so not great but not bad. I still had some hatching at 19-20 days and quite a few DIS that made it into lockdown but didn't hatch.
On the next go round in April I discovered that if I didn't add any water my humidity stayed around 25% I figured that was close enough, and so much less work, so I ran with it I put in 46 eggs from my flock and then a friend asked me to add 10 eggs for him... we had a lot of good veining early on and movement, I was very disappointed that out of the 30ish that went into lock down only 11 hatched. I decided to hatch some out by the Moon and set more eggs the middle of May, same basic results still having early hatches and many DIS....
So I went back to reading and decided based on the placement of the DIS(the ones that hatched were closer to the only vent hole I could see) it was a Ventilation issue. So I got out the drill and added some ventilation and set more eggs, as before everything started off good but when I went into Lockdown I left the extra thermometer in and discovered that my temps went up to 102??!! WTH
my best guess is that when I remove the egg turner and the eggs drop down that inch and a half but the thermostat probe stayed at the same level so my eggs were getting over warm.....so out of the last batch and 24 going into lockdown and only 4 babies comming out!!???!! I started reading some more and an off hand comment about elevation got me to thinking,.....Here in Colorado we are right at 6000 feet above sea level and Dry....... so after some more research I decided that it was worth a try at the 45-50% humidity that is recommended in the owners manual provided with my bator.
I am hoping that others who incubate at higher altitudes will chime in with their experience.
Then I kept reading and kept hearing about the "dry" incubation method and how much better hatches people got with it, So the next run in January I decided to try it, I started with 36 eggs and tried to keep the bator humidity at 30%. We hatched 17, so not great but not bad. I still had some hatching at 19-20 days and quite a few DIS that made it into lockdown but didn't hatch.
On the next go round in April I discovered that if I didn't add any water my humidity stayed around 25% I figured that was close enough, and so much less work, so I ran with it I put in 46 eggs from my flock and then a friend asked me to add 10 eggs for him... we had a lot of good veining early on and movement, I was very disappointed that out of the 30ish that went into lock down only 11 hatched. I decided to hatch some out by the Moon and set more eggs the middle of May, same basic results still having early hatches and many DIS....
So I went back to reading and decided based on the placement of the DIS(the ones that hatched were closer to the only vent hole I could see) it was a Ventilation issue. So I got out the drill and added some ventilation and set more eggs, as before everything started off good but when I went into Lockdown I left the extra thermometer in and discovered that my temps went up to 102??!! WTH
my best guess is that when I remove the egg turner and the eggs drop down that inch and a half but the thermostat probe stayed at the same level so my eggs were getting over warm.....so out of the last batch and 24 going into lockdown and only 4 babies comming out!!???!! I started reading some more and an off hand comment about elevation got me to thinking,.....Here in Colorado we are right at 6000 feet above sea level and Dry....... so after some more research I decided that it was worth a try at the 45-50% humidity that is recommended in the owners manual provided with my bator.
I am hoping that others who incubate at higher altitudes will chime in with their experience.
