Inside / Outside and Advice I am reading.

[Jadele]

Hi Everyone, I have long wanted to hatch some chicks and have finally took the plunge and constructed an incubator out of a Glass Vivarium (exoterra brand) lined with foil coated foam. This provides me a double door to the front that means I don't loose all the atmosphere to do my turns etc. The temp is controlled by a controller that is using a tubular heater which will be shrouded soon and a heat pad underneath which in turn supplies heat to the bottom of a water dish to provide humidity. According to the thermometer I am holding on about 37 to 38 with around 48% humidity and so I added the eggs today.

So that's the setup and I welcome any advise on that btw. My question is that I have been reading lots about what temp this and what temp that etc and obviously I can see that its important for stability during incubation. That said on hatching in a natural setting the chicks would come out from under mum and be in the local outside temp for moments of time so it got me wondering. My setup is in the house where the temp is about 20 to 22 all the time so once hatched I plan to use the same tank as the brooder but substitute the tubular heater for some sort of brooder heater (recommendations welcome) . So at this point does the whole tank have to be kept at the advised temps that decrease each week following hatching bearing in mind the room average of 20-22 or will they just go under the heat as they need it and is humidity not a concern after they are hatched?

Many thanks - sorry for the long post!

James

 

[NatJ]

will they just go under the heat as they need it and is humidity not a concern after they are hatched?

Correct.

One end of the brooder should be at the recommended temperature for the age of the chicks, the other end should be cooler. The way you really tell if it's right is to put the chicks in--if they all huddle under the heat, make it a little warmer. If they all crowd away from the heat, make it cooler. If they're moving around, under the heat and out, they're fine. When they sleep, they should usually be under the heat but not quite in the hottest place.

Temperature for the cool part of the brooder: as long as water doesn't freeze into ice, it's warm enough! So your house temperature should be fine.

After the chicks have hatched and dried off, I've never worried about humidity, except that I don't want them in actual rain. But I do not think "too dry" would ever be an issue.