Incubators Anonymous

[Arielle]

Quote: How long are the marans taking to hatch?? Are they 21 days or taking longer?? I have read a few opinions that they take longer than 21 . . . .mine have been on par with other eggs incubated side by side the whole time.

How do you treat the eggs prior to setting? wash not wash, sand or not sand?

WHere is the fan and how strong is it in relation to the marans eggs. I have noticed some areas of my home made incubator has a strong current that I can feel easily. My hand feels cold in that section. and the temp is slightly lower in that section. I rotate the eggs to , hopefully, have an even hatch. Hasn't happened yet-- been drawn out hatches this year.

 

[KKs Kandies]

loved the poem

well done, so happy the chicks survived!

question... I'm thinking of rearranging a few birds and would like to know what the chicks and grown offspring look like and any other info you are willing to share.... Golden Buff Orpington over Barred Rock, Lemon Cuckoo over Americana and Easter Eggers and/or Barred Rock. Thanks in advance for your info, help and time.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: the higher humidity's probably causing the electronics to short out and turn the heat on... the solution would be to find a way to put the thermostat in a sealed container that has little or no humidity inside it. something like a zip-lock maybe, with tape or heat-shrink sealing the holes where wires go in/out. it just needs to sense temperature, not humidity, but have a small enough air volume that the temperature will change as fast as the incubator does.

thinking about it, i'd probably use heat shrink tubing that's got the glue inside it. put it over a bit of the bag where wires go in, so the glue will seal firmly when it's heated and shrinks up to the wires. then you can just suck out the air from the ziplock as much as possible before sealing it. possibly put some of the silica gel dessicant inside too, to keep it drier. (crystal cat litter is the same thing)

it would depend on the design of the thermostat i guess... sealing off where ever the temperature sensor is, and/or exposed circuits. the best solution would be to have an external temperature probe, then you could keep the electronics sealed OUTSIDE of the incubator even. then the humidity wouldn't be an issue.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:
The Marans are the real test... lets see how many get stuck this time

I lost my entire last batch--

NEver had that happen before. Nervous about the next 2 dozen due late this week.

First test hatch in my Sportsman going on right now. Two early birds out.. one pipping (Silkies). Humidity dropped down to 49 percent while I was gone. My solution was to pour some water on the pulp egg cartons I am hatching in. the cartons absorbed the water and the humidity went right back up to 69%. It didn't seem to affect my thermostat or change the heat - the electronics are outside of the heated part.

Aren't your electronics outside of the incubator DMRippy? Just the probe inside? Or did you put the electronics inside.. I can't remember the pictures. I am going to be setting up the filler buckets before the "real" eggs get here next week.

 

[DMRippy]

Yeah only a probe in the hatcher. But I do think the humidity is causing a problem like Ki4got thought. I had a similar problem and was KILLING the chicks because it was spiking to 104. I did save a few, but still lost a good amount of chicks to heat spikes when the humidity got high. I keep the probe taped to the top on the glass because that is the center of the hatcher but when the humidity is high it will get condensation and DRIP on the probe..... maybe I do need to weather proof it some how.

here is the hatcher.



The probe is taped to the glass and hangs down from the top.



The pic below is what I changed. The laptop fan is mounted on the same wall as the light and right next to the light. That wooden wall is gone. I put the water in front of the fan and it SUCKS air in at the round fan part and BLOWS it out the top so no air is directly going on the chicks. I did notice that the chicks on the bottom and near the NEW fan on the OPPOSITE wall (not pictures) seemed to be shrink wrapping more so I may do something to slow down the air flow over there.... might take it out or put it on a time for just a few mins at a time every 4 hours or something. That will keep new air circulating help with the hot spot but not run as much.



Here is a better shot... the fan is on that wall with the light. ONLY ONE fan on the laptop cooler is running. I also have another water source with a towel in it to up the humidity... I didn't see it did much.



At the BOTTOM of this wall I added a TINY TINY fan (like the size of a quarter) in the center. I have tape over it so it is only working about 1/2 what it could.



this is the thermostat outside the hatcher.



Arielle..... I don't really do anything to any eggs before I set them. They do seem to take a day longer to hatch. Some eggs hatch on day 19-20, most hatch day 21 but some Maras take 22-23 days. I set these on the 30th so they were due Saturday. Some had just pipped and when I opened the pip to make sure they could breath, I could see they still had blood in the veins... on day 22.... I leave them be as long as they can breath. I do put a wet paper towel around them to keep them HUMID so they don't dry up too bad over night.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Yeah only a probe in the hatcher. But I do think the humidity is causing a problem like Ki4got thought. I had a similar problem and was KILLING the chicks because it was spiking to 104. I did save a few, but still lost a good amount of chicks to heat spikes when the humidity got high. I keep the probe taped to the top on the glass because that is the center of the hatcher but when the humidity is high it will get condensation and DRIP on the probe..... maybe I do need to weather proof it some how.

here is the hatcher.



The probe is taped to the glass and hangs down from the top.



The pic below is what I changed. The laptop fan is mounted on the same wall as the light and right next to the light. That wooden wall is gone. I put the water in front of the fan and it SUCKS air in at the round fan part and BLOWS it out the top so no air is directly going on the chicks. I did notice that the chicks on the bottom and near the NEW fan on the OPPOSITE wall (not pictures) seemed to be shrink wrapping more so I may do something to slow down the air flow over there.... might take it out or put it on a time for just a few mins at a time every 4 hours or something. That will keep new air circulating help with the hot spot but not run as much.



Here is a better shot... the fan is on that wall with the light. ONLY ONE fan on the laptop cooler is running. I also have another water source with a towel in it to up the humidity... I didn't see it did much.



At the BOTTOM of this wall I added a TINY TINY fan (like the size of a quarter) in the center. I have tape over it so it is only working about 1/2 what it could.



this is the thermostat outside the hatcher.



Arielle..... I don't really do anything to any eggs before I set them. They do seem to take a day longer to hatch. Some eggs hatch on day 19-20, most hatch day 21 but some Maras take 22-23 days. I set these on the 30th so they were due Saturday. Some had just pipped and when I opened the pip to make sure they could breath, I could see they still had blood in the veins... on day 22.... I leave them be as long as they can breath. I do put a wet paper towel around them to keep them HUMID so they don't dry up too bad over night.

Hmm.. I didn't think about the humidity possibly causing drips onto the sensor. That would cool it off quite a bit. When I look at what the sock does to the humidity thermometer - it reads 85 when the regular thermometer reads 99 because of evaporation cooling at 30% humidity - imagine it would be much worse at 60%. I would guess it is causing the probe to mis-read the temperature and turn the heat back on - causing the spike. So - moving the probe or putting it in something that does NOT allow humidity to drip on it would be a very good idea.

 

[maryhysong]

Dry incubation works best so they don't drown. My problem is they are shrink wrapping. Trying to solve that problem.... not killing them really, but not good. It is always just the Marans eggs, well mostly the Marans eggs. When I get the humidity up to about 70% the temp wants to go up, that is not good.... not sure how to fix the temp rising. Suggestions are welcome.

That sure seems odd to me. When my humidity gets below 25%, the temp goes UP. But my redwood, like many vintage models has the fan and heating element at the back top of the cabinet. The fan blows warm air over the shelf where the water pans sit, then there is a gap at the front where the air sinks down, travels through the trays and is sucked back up by the fan at the back. There is only about 1 degree temp difference between the top tray and the bottom and maybe 2% difference in humidity. (but the fan does not blow directly on the eggs at all)

In my first hatch I did not have the tray pushed all the way in so the eggs in the front were exposed to a fair current of air. Also at that time I couldn't get the humidity above 40=45% because 1) I didn't have water pans as big as the originals and 2) only had a couple of sponges and they had very fine pores and did not wick the water up very well, the whole top of the sponge would be bone dry. All the chicks in the front of the tray that first hatch shrinlwrapped.

Now I have rubbermaid drawer organizers (that come in different sizes and shapes that you can hook together) that completely cover the top shelf, where the original water pan was. I also have about 36 cheap cellulose sponges standing up on end in the water trays for hatching; now my humidity is 65%. Most of my chicks are hatching just fine without assistance. But there are exceptions, like today I thought they were all done and while I was pulling all the dry chicks out, bumped an egg that was pipped on the bottom side where I couldn't see it. It dried out badly because of having the bator open so I had to help but seems fine.

 

[DMRippy]

Thanks guys! I will see what I can do about the probe. Might put a plastic cup over it, like a yogurt cup with a lid. Seal the hole for the probe, put some silica packs in and hot glue the lid on. Oh a juice bottle.... that has a seal on the lid and I could see if anything is GROWING in the bottle... I have some with holes in the lids for straws. I would LOVE to be able to the humidity higher without the temp spiking.

I will update with the next hatch.

 

[ki4got]

Thanks guys! I will see what I can do about the probe. Might put a plastic cup over it, like a yogurt cup with a lid. Seal the hole for the probe, put some silica packs in and hot glue the lid on. Oh a juice bottle.... that has a seal on the lid and I could see if anything is GROWING in the bottle... I have some with holes in the lids for straws. I would LOVE to be able to the humidity higher without the temp spiking.

I will update with the next hatch.

i would think something as small as possible, since any larger air volume is going to take longer to register temperature changes... that's why i was thinking a zip lock baggie. even a small pill bottle would be better than a bottle or yogurt cup...

 

[Runawaylobster]

First test hatch in my Sportsman going on right now. Two early birds out.. one pipping (Silkies). Humidity dropped down to 49 percent while I was gone. My solution was to pour some water on the pulp egg cartons I am hatching in. the cartons absorbed the water and the humidity went right back up to 69%. It didn't seem to affect my thermostat or change the heat - the electronics are outside of the heated part.

Aren't your electronics outside of the incubator DMRippy? Just the probe inside? Or did you put the electronics inside.. I can't remember the pictures. I am going to be setting up the filler buckets before the "real" eggs get here next week.

Since running my first test hatch with the sportsman, i really liked it, except for the early clears that i pulled out i got a 100% hatch rate, my first time ever! BUT I found that there are not many telltale signs for when the tray runs out of water, It gives good humidity and then suddenly Poof... it runs out, you can't see the tray either so theres no way to take a peek.

I don't have the automatic filler bucket so when i put them on lockdown i realized it would be a problem, the tray only lasts about one 24 hour day or so and i didn't want to open to refill. I used aluminum tape you use for AC ducts, and taped one of those plastic bendy straws (like the kind you get your drinks in at the fair) to the bottom of a funnel and curled it all around through the top front vent hole into the tray, so that i could pour water into the tray from outside. It wasn't perfect but it allowed me to just keep topping it up about twice a day so that I knew it wouldn't run out. Hope this helps.

I am seriously looking into the auto filler though.. but not quite yet.