Incubators Anonymous

[ozexpat]

Hy my name is Jason from Norcal and I am a hatchaholic
I presently am cooking crele penedesenca and white empordanesa. I have my friend Debsflock cooking the extras

welcome Jason

 

[Vindi]

Need advice.... Should I go with a larger incubator24 egg capacity or the 7 egg capacity.... DH has conditions on how many chickens we have!

 

[Tammy N]

Need advice.... Should I go with a larger incubator24 egg capacity or the 7 egg capacity.... DH has conditions on how many chickens we have!

The more eggs the more chance to get the chicks you want extras can be sold 7 eggs 4 may be fertile 2 may hatch 24 eggs 17 may be fertile and not all hatch.

Get a Bigger one and have fun . OH and you will get roosters so knock those numbers down too

 

[Vindi]

Thanks.... Define fly the direction I was heading! Plus almost same cost for the bigger one!

 

[Vindi]

Definitely !

 

[ozexpat]

Need advice.... Should I go with a larger incubator24 egg capacity or the 7 egg capacity.... DH has conditions on how many chickens we have!

I am sorry I had a chuckle here at your expense.

Definitely go with the bigger one. You never know what you may do later. Hubby may even turn into a hatch-a-holic himself.

I hatch eggs on two continents. In my SoCal aprtment I have two stryobators and a home made bordeaux-bator for hatching - and I cant keep chickens.

In Asia I have 2 styrobators, a 500 egg capacity bator and a 280 egg hatching bator.

I started with the idea of eating a just few eggs each day at my beach house in the Philippines...

 

[sweetsilence83]

Hello everyone,
I am new to incubating eggs, but I am quickly becoming addicted. I am on my first hatch, I confiscated my duck's clutch when one of my broody chickens broke one. We inherited our property and everything on it from my father in law, that included 2 styrofoam incubators. Is it bad to have eggs with staggered development in the the same incubator. I would have waited but the eggs were already veining and at different stages when I confiscated them, curtsey of broody chicken butt. So I couldn't just wait and incubate at the same time. The other question I have is, does any one know if it's norm for a rohan hen to keep laying eggs just because she doesn't have a clutch to sit on. My duck is up to 18 eggs now and we know they are hers because she is the only duck that can get up to the top nest boxes. Two of the eggs have the shadow of a bill in the air sack 4 are probably 5 or 6 days younger and the rest are grouped pretty much in pairs or threes as far as development . I posted my question here because all of you are veteran hatchers and will probably know have fabulous advice, thank you!

 

[ozexpat]

Rouens will lay 140-170 eggs per year and are poor brooders so they wont set the eggs very often (I have 6 viable Rouen eggs at 18 days in with Pekins and Welsh Harlequins).

Good luck with the very staggered hatch. Can you set up the second bator as a hatcher and move the eggs over when you see a bill shadow in the candling image?

 

[ozexpat]

You can get great duck info from http://www.metzerfarms.com/DuckWelcome.cfm?CustID=1800103

 

[ki4got]

Hello everyone,
I am new to incubating eggs, but I am quickly becoming addicted. I am on my first hatch, I confiscated my duck's clutch when one of my broody chickens broke one. We inherited our property and everything on it from my father in law, that included 2 styrofoam incubators. Is it bad to have eggs with staggered development in the the same incubator. I would have waited but the eggs were already veining and at different stages when I confiscated them, curtsey of broody chicken butt. So I couldn't just wait and incubate at the same time. The other question I have is, does any one know if it's norm for a rohan hen to keep laying eggs just because she doesn't have a clutch to sit on. My duck is up to 18 eggs now and we know they are hers because she is the only duck that can get up to the top nest boxes. Two of the eggs have the shadow of a bill in the air sack 4 are probably 5 or 6 days younger and the rest are grouped pretty much in pairs or threes as far as development . I posted my question here because all of you are veteran hatchers and will probably know have fabulous advice, thank you!

you answered your own question in the second line. LOL you have 2 incubators. use one for incubating, keep the second for hatching only.

for my 'broody started' eggs, I keep them in the incubator (dry incubation btw, adding NO water.) and once they reach a certain point (by size of air cell - you just get a 'feel' for it) then I candle every day until I see drawdown - the air cell gets MUCH larger almost overnight. that usually means hatching is going to occur in another day or 2.

THEN they go to the hatcher, where I try to keep the humidity between 55 and 65% or so. (chicks hatching will push that up). I hatch upright in egg crates to keep chicks from scrambling their unhatched cohorts.

yes, the hatcher gets opened periodically while other chicks are hatching, but I try not to open it if a chick is zipping, and only VERY briefly if there are pips. I line the floor of it with paper towel tho, and use the paper egg crates, so if I need humidity to jump fast, I either pour hot water onto the paper or fill one of the empty spaces in the egg crate and it wicks the water quickly, giving humidity where the eggs need it most.