Incubators Anonymous

[DMRippy]

I have said I was going to do this and finally did

Here is my candler my son came up with the idea and it works.

All the tools you need a water bottle top (I cut it bigger with a utility knife and then marked it and cut the rest with scissors) Electric tape and a flashlight.



Cut the top to fit the top of your flashlight. I have used bigger flashlights and it works fine with them... just focuses the light.



I start the tape at the bottom to attach the cap to the flashlight and work my way up make sure you cover the cap really well so no light is getting out to blind you.



Here is a view from the top after it cap is on.



This is a Marans egg, these are eggs I was going to put in the bator... should have used some with babies in them already

Brown egg




Another thing I do... I use the 30 egg trays for my incubator and I just take the tray into the bathroom (dark room no window) and I just put the flashlight over the top of the eggs, that way I don't have to pick them up and possible drop the eggs..... It also goes really quick.

 

[kelly77]

Hi my name is Kelly and I could become an incubator addict...I am already a chicken addict and just started my first batch of eggs today. Nice to meet everyone! I am addicted to this website ...so many people that have a wealth of knowledge!

 

[gabrielle1976]

Well everyone Im back , I managed to keep my self someone under control for a few months but the addiction your never really free of it are you and what with the NYD contests and all the fun hatch alongs going on it was more then I could withstand and I have fallen off the wagon .

Hello My name Is Elizabeth and im still a incubator addict .

 

[Flowerbh]

Well everyone Im back , I managed to keep my self someone under control for a few months but the addiction your never really free of it are you and what with the NYD contests and all the fun hatch alongs going on it was more then I could withstand and I have fallen off the wagon .

Hello My name Is Elizabeth and im still a incubator addict .

hahahahhaa! I will be getting my first eggs to hatch next week......I think I am going to be an addict also.....I lay awake and think of all the different types of chicks I want to hatch. I know that my son's girlfriend ordered me some eggs from Jordan Farms (Isbars and Cream Legbars) that will be here next week and some others ....Frizzled turkey neck turkens that will not come until Jan. OMG! Can't wait!

 

[Flowerbh]

ok, so my eggs will get here next week. This will be my first time. Questions:
1. If you are only doing 6 eggs, do you put them all in the middle of your incubator next to each other, spread them around or what? I have the Genesis Hovabator 1588. It holds about 40 eggs?

2. The incubator is brand new out of the box. Do I still need to disinfect it and wash it all down?

3. About the eggs....some books say to clean the eggs with an egg cleaner right before you put them in and some say just scape off any poop. What is best?

4. Some books say to not add water at the beginning, but this incubators instructions say to add water into the well. Do I follow the insturctions or what the book says?
Thanks for any advice.

 

[Overoberyl]

ok, so my eggs will get here next week. This will be my first time. Questions:
1. If you are only doing 6 eggs, do you put them all in the middle of your incubator next to each other, spread them around or what? I have the Genesis Hovabator 1588. It holds about 40 eggs?

2. The incubator is brand new out of the box. Do I still need to disinfect it and wash it all down?

3. About the eggs....some books say to clean the eggs with an egg cleaner right before you put them in and some say just scape off any poop. What is best?

4. Some books say to not add water at the beginning, but this incubators instructions say to add water into the well. Do I follow the insturctions or what the book says?
Thanks for any advice.

With the Genesis I don't think it matters where you put the eggs, but I would cluster them all together so that when you do open the bator, there is less chance for temp fluctuation because eggs hold the heat better and they will be close together. That's just my logic, but I don't really know if it matters.

I disinfected mine even though it was brand new, just like I wash new towels & sheets before using them for the first time, you just never know what kind of dirt might be on them from the manufacturing process.

On the other hand, I would absolutely NOT clean the eggs unless they are filthy, if you clean them it will strip the bloom which will make them more susceptible to bacteria and thus lower your chances for a good hatch. If you get them with large chunks of debris, I would soften it with a wet paper towel and remove it that way rather than washing the whole egg. Scraping or breaking off dried pieces of debris can also damage the egg so that's why I prefer to use a wet paper towel and just clean the dirtiest spots.

I would recommend running your incubator for several days prior to setting your eggs, if you do that (and as long as you have a calibrated hygrometer) you can get a good idea of what the running humidity is in your bator without any water. As long as it is at or around 30% you really don't need any water. If it's lower than that you may want to consider putting some in. It also depends on what approach you are taking. I use the dry hatch method and only add water if it gets below 20%. I've found that anything much higher than 30% for me results in sticky gooey chicks, but I know many people go 40% or higher and have great hatches. You just have to decide what you want to do and adjust if you need to in subsequent hatches.

Best of luck, and definitely let us know how it goes!!

 

[ki4got]

Quote: i agree with what she said, with one exception. i dry incubate all my eggs, not adding any water unless my humidity drops below 15% or so. then i up it to about 50-60% for the last 3 days to aid hatching.

 

[gladahmae]

Hi again all! I'm looking for a little input or ideas for things to try over the winter/spring to get my incubator into better functioning order.

In the fall we got an incubator off criagslist (hova 1588 or similar.....forced air hova is the bottom line) and a few turners and ordered eggs from a few sellers here and a few on ebay. Our hatch rates were awful. The most we had hatch in any attempt was 2 chicks. Out of over 100 eggs, we managed to get 5 chicks. Our incubator *appears* to be running well temp-wise, and the only trouble we had was getting the humidity over 50% during lockdown. Ironically, our first attempts was our best hatch (2 out of 39) when we had consistently 45-55% humidity during lockdown. In our last attempt at hatching, when I was able to keep it up closer to 55-65% during lockdown we had 2 hatch (out of 47) and 7 that either pipped internally (2) and quit, tried to pip and failed (1) or didn't ever try to pip and were in various stages of absorbing the yolk (4) and 2 late quitters.

Clearly we did something *more* correctly in the last attempt since we actually got 23% of them to make it to the end, but it was absolutely awful opening those shells and seeing the membrane pipped and a dead chick.

In our last attmept we had almost the entire bottom of the incubator covered in sponges or towels to keep the humidity up (caulked in tubing to add water without opening the lid) and a humidifier running on high to have the RH of the ROOM up. We were, however, having trouble keeping the temp up....it kept wanting to fall to around 97deg. and that was with a brand new wafer.

Should I keep playing around with the incubator I have? Should I get a cheap still-air and re-purpose the fan kit from my existing incubator? Save my pennies and buy a genesis? I should have fertile eggs in Feb or March to play with so I can take the shipping variable away, but I don't want to 'waste' eggs if you think my incubator is the issue. Help?

 

[Overoberyl]

Hi again all! I'm looking for a little input or ideas for things to try over the winter/spring to get my incubator into better functioning order.

In the fall we got an incubator off criagslist (hova 1588 or similar.....forced air hova is the bottom line) and a few turners and ordered eggs from a few sellers here and a few on ebay. Our hatch rates were awful. The most we had hatch in any attempt was 2 chicks. Out of over 100 eggs, we managed to get 5 chicks. Our incubator *appears* to be running well temp-wise, and the only trouble we had was getting the humidity over 50% during lockdown. Ironically, our first attempts was our best hatch (2 out of 39) when we had consistently 45-55% humidity during lockdown. In our last attempt at hatching, when I was able to keep it up closer to 55-65% during lockdown we had 2 hatch (out of 47) and 7 that either pipped internally (2) and quit, tried to pip and failed (1) or didn't ever try to pip and were in various stages of absorbing the yolk (4) and 2 late quitters.

Clearly we did something *more* correctly in the last attempt since we actually got 23% of them to make it to the end, but it was absolutely awful opening those shells and seeing the membrane pipped and a dead chick.

In our last attmept we had almost the entire bottom of the incubator covered in sponges or towels to keep the humidity up (caulked in tubing to add water without opening the lid) and a humidifier running on high to have the RH of the ROOM up. We were, however, having trouble keeping the temp up....it kept wanting to fall to around 97deg. and that was with a brand new wafer.

Should I keep playing around with the incubator I have? Should I get a cheap still-air and re-purpose the fan kit from my existing incubator? Save my pennies and buy a genesis? I should have fertile eggs in Feb or March to play with so I can take the shipping variable away, but I don't want to 'waste' eggs if you think my incubator is the issue. Help?

I would guess its partly that you are dealing with shipped eggs, and also perhaps your humidity is too high throughout incubation. That can cause too much fluid to be present at lockdown which can make it difficult for the chick to pip, and if they do pip they risk drowning, getting stuck, etc. Did it seem like there was a lot of goo in the egg when you eggtopsied? If not, I would suspect a temp problem, if your thermometers aren't calibrated and are off by a couple of degrees low that would cause weak chicks that never hatch, and too high would cause them to overheat and not hatch also.

 

[gladahmae]

I would guess its partly that you are dealing with shipped eggs, and also perhaps your humidity is too high throughout incubation. That can cause too much fluid to be present at lockdown which can make it difficult for the chick to pip, and if they do pip they risk drowning, getting stuck, etc. Did it seem like there was a lot of goo in the egg when you eggtopsied? If not, I would suspect a temp problem, if your thermometers aren't calibrated and are off by a couple of degrees low that would cause weak chicks that never hatch, and too high would cause them to overheat and not hatch also.

I tried to run dry incubation and keep things in the 30-35% range until lockdown (did the salt/water calibration, so it should have been accurate). A few of them were a little more "gooey" than others, but being new to this I don't know what is a 'normal' amount of goo versus what is too much.