Is earlier better

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I don't know what day I put my egg in the incubator...I think it's day 18 but it could be later or earlier... I was thinking I'd go into lockdown today just in case it was later then I thought.would it be better to start lockdown now or later? I'm pretty sure my 18 day count is a little bit off...
 
A day or two won't make a difference. I have put mine in lockdown on day 19 and had good results and others early on day 17 as I had some I put in on different dates 2 or 3 days apart, so some went into lockdown a little early. My hatches were still good.
 
I'd go later. They don't technically need to go into lockdown until they start to move. They don't need higher humidity before they pip, but they need it for when they pip. By going into lockdown early, at day 18, people are covering themselves for an early hatch. If you can keep an eye on your eggs, I wouldn't begin lockdown until you see a wobble, but that's just me :-)
 
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I'd go one more day. Depending on your humidity levels, you could bump it just a bit. For example, if you incubated at 30, bump up to 35 today. Then tomorrow when you do lockdown you go the rest of the way up there.

The traditional way is to incubate with one level and then spike it up there on lockdown day and keep it there. I stagger my humidity levels a bit. Starting on the day before lockdown (day 17), I increase by 5%, on 18, add another 5%. On day 19, that's the day I hit my target hatch humidity, be it another 5% or 10% or whatever. For some odd reason, I get better results doing this than if I just suddenly shift from incubation level to hatch level. Not really sure why but test batches I ran produce up to a 15% better rate on shipped eggs and on some hand delivered eggs (some of which sat in the fridge for a week), I wound up with a 100% hatch when the breeder was experiencing a 80%. Going to test both processes with my own eggs once my babies decide that I've given up getting eggs and begin laying.
 
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I think i just heard a peep! maybe it was my imagination... Hope not!!
 
thats what i thought i heard a few yesterday afternoon but no more after that...
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Mine didn't go into lockdown until they started hatching. They started hatching early..(:
 

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