Incubators Anonymous

[ozexpat]

thank you. If I candle them and they seem fine do you think its ok to put them in with my runner eggs?

sure. you may need to separate them at lockdown. depending on how far each species is along

 

[Chick a dee1023]

sure. you may need to separate them at lockdown. depending on how far each species is along

Thank you again I'm not sure about the goose eggs ( I know they are over a week, but idk any more than that), my runners are at ABOUT day 16/17 (I got them from a farm and the lady told me they are "about 2 weeks along" when I got them a few days ago. Im terrified I'm going to stop turning too soon/too late and kill them They are my first hatching eggs.)

 

[Chick a dee1023]

OK so, I know, I ask ALOT of questions, sorry about that! But I have another one, I have my runner duck eggs in my homemade bator (new one is on it's way), and it does great with holding humidity, and I got the temp to stay perfect since our last little "mishap", but (again I'm new, so I'm going by pictures & stuff I've read) it seems like the air sacs may be a bit smaller than they should be. I read that too much humidity can cause the air sac to be too small (along with other problems). I had 2 Tupperware bowls each with a sponge in them for humidity, I removed one today and left the bator open for a min to let the humidity go down some (its been between 64-69 pretty steady for the past few days, only dropping to 55-56 when I open to turn the eggs or candle). It went down to 55% so I left it along to see what would happen and its back up to 66%. Is this OK for the eggs or is it too high for being only 16/17 days into incubation??

 

[ozexpat]

OK so, I know, I ask ALOT of questions, sorry about that! But I have another one, I have my runner duck eggs in my homemade bator (new one is on it's way), and it does great with holding humidity, and I got the temp to stay perfect since our last little "mishap", but (again I'm new, so I'm going by pictures & stuff I've read) it seems like the air sacs may be a bit smaller than they should be. I read that too much humidity can cause the air sac to be too small (along with other problems). I had 2 Tupperware bowls each with a sponge in them for humidity, I removed one today and left the bator open for a min to let the humidity go down some (its been between 64-69 pretty steady for the past few days, only dropping to 55-56 when I open to turn the eggs or candle). It went down to 55% so I left it along to see what would happen and its back up to 66%. Is this OK for the eggs or is it too high for being only 16/17 days into incubation??

I would get the water out of the bator all together - let them dry up or you will have major deaths at full term I set at 20ish percent humidity intil lockdown then up to 70. Some dont lockdown till first pip. Then quickly up

there is a hatching 101 link in my signature - its a good read

 

[Chick a dee1023]

I would get the water out of the bator all together - let them dry up or you will have major deaths at full term I set at 20ish percent humidity intil lockdown then up to 70. Some dont lockdown till first pip. Then quickly up

there is a hatching 101 link in my signature - its a good read

thank you! I will take it out and see what happens, there's only 2 in there (had 3, lost 1), so I'd like for these 2 to make it!

 

[UrbanMamaHen]

Does anyone have experience with a Brinsea Octagon 20 DX? I borrowed one from a fellow BYCer as I ran out of space on my two Octagon 20 Eco. The DX's fan runs a lot rougher than my Eco, making the entire incubator vibrate. I am thinking that the constant vibration may damage the fragile embryos or may prevent them from developing altogether. I've only set the eggs since Tuesday so it is too soon to candle. Is the vibration bad for the eggs?

 

[NinetreesMom]

I have to ask since so many of you are setting huge (for me!) quantities of eggs, what do you do with all those chicks? Are you selling them? Eating them? How do you market them?
I am quickly becoming an addict myself, but we only have room for so many chickens on our farm!
I would love to find a way to make this a self-sustaining addiction

 

[Runawaylobster]

So now that i have two broody hens sitting on eggs in the coop, i'm a bit worried about what to do with them. I have never had broody hens. Do i need to move them out of the coop to a new nest, and if i do that will they decide to stop sitting in the eggs? do i need to separate them or can they go together.

i was thinking of leaving them where they are until about 2 weeks and then move them, or should i move them now.

Also when the chicks hatch do they have to have their own pen?

the logistics are killing me i seem to be constantly building chicken pens.. LOL!!!

 

[gladahmae]

I need talked out of intervening in my hatch. I know that leaving things alone is the best course, but this has ended up being a really messed-up hatch. When I eggtopsied the "dead" eggs this morning after moving everything else into the other incubator (which is NOT set up for hatching at all!) I had almost half of them pipped into the aircell and that was it. I have 3 eggs in the incubator now that are rocking and chirping, and they've been doing that since 10:00 this morning, and there are still no pips. Things got really really dry for some reason in the other incubator and I observed white papery membranes in the eggs I opened to assess whether they had quit, or died during the heat issues/malfunctions. I still have an egg in there (now wrapped in damp paper towel) that pipped yesterday....about 24 hours ago. I'm considering grabbing it out and assisting it in hatching the rest of the way since it has not made any progress in that period of time (likely a "stuck" chick).

Should I poke a hole in these other chirping and rocking eggs to check to see if they too are "stuck"? One egg is from my layer coop, so EE mutts, and 2 are BCMs that I would REALLY REALLY REALLY like to hatch. If they die in the shell because I did nothing, I'm going to be really bummed about this hatch. We did EVERYTHING RIGHT up until now! I had over 50% of them go into lockdown, and only 2 of those were late quitters.

I have a genesis ordered so I hopefully don't have to go through this again next week.

Well after we got all of the kids to sleep last night, my husband and I went down to pull the chick that pipped on Wednesday afternoon. However, when we got down there, we saw that one of the other eggs had pipped. We decided we didn't want to risk the 5 eggs to save the one, so we left everything in there. The incubator doesn't seem to be holding humidity well at all, so I added more water to the sponges, and went to bed. This morning, 10 hours later, there is no change in the egg that pipped last night. 0.

I'm strongly considering steaming up my bathroom once I get my oldest on the bus and pulling out the now 2-day-old chick, the one that pipped last night, and putting a small hole in the 2 marans eggs that are hatching if the newest pip is really dry.

Oh. And the order invoice for my genesis says estimated delivery is 3-5 days after I need it. Best case scenario, it shows up on day 19.....but that's only if it doesn't take 3 days for "processing"

 

[Costa Rica Art]

So now that i have two broody hens sitting on eggs in the coop, i'm a bit worried about what to do with them. I have never had broody hens. Do i need to move them out of the coop to a new nest, and if i do that will they decide to stop sitting in the eggs? do i need to separate them or can they go together.

i was thinking of leaving them where they are until about 2 weeks and then move them, or should i move them now.

Also when the chicks hatch do they have to have their own pen?

the logistics are killing me i seem to be constantly building chicken pens.. LOL!!!

I have had other hens try to get into the nest box at they same time breaking all but one egg, all of which had chicks in them. Depending on how many nest boxes you have you could put up wire doors to keep other hens out or as we do is to put a nest box in a brooder area. I do not know if your two hens would tolerate each other or each others chicks. You could see what happens but be prepared to separate them if the hens peck each other or the others chicks. I have a brooder area set up in the coop with a nest box, when one hen is sitting we go in at night and move her plus her eggs to the brooder area nest box. That box has a wire door on it which is closed till the hen has settled down with her eggs then it is opened to allow her to get out and eat. I have also taken a large wooden box with a removable top and used that for a nest box when we have run out of room. It is large enough to house the hen, a small feeder and a water container. All of the coop, nest boxes have deep litter wood shavings for good and easy house keeping plus NO smell. Here in Costa Rica we have high humidity so smell can be a problem, deep litter takes care of that and is very beneficial for the chickens and easy to take care of. I just clean out the nest boxes, let the wood shavings fall into the shavings on the floor and add fresh shavings to the nest boxes. There is a dirt floor in the coop and brooder area, the probiotics that develop in the dirt/litter are very beneficial to the flock plus giving them lots of material to scratch in when they are confined to the coop plus it is no problem for the chicks.
You can see the brooder area that is closed off to the main flock. You can barely see the head of the silkie hen that has chicks in the brooder area. The area is large enough so it can be divided into 2 brooder pins.
The same hen with her 10 chicks (1 is just under her tail).