Jan./Feb. 2014 hatch a long

[rayray983]

Mine are due the 16th so ready to have lil slikies EEs and polish chicks in my brooder anyone ever incubated silkies before mine look like they are 2 to 3 days further along in development than the rest

 

[DeannaA]

Mine are due the 16th so ready to have lil slikies EEs and polish chicks in my brooder anyone ever incubated silkies before mine look like they are 2 to 3 days further along in development than the rest

The smaller eggs hatcher sooner sometimes. Mine have most of the time but not always.

 

[gimmie birdies]

day 16 candle the points to see if they have 2 much water going on-(if they are clear-or light shows through.) if they do I would take out the water till the internal pip- and also make sure they have good vent and stuff.

 

[Farmer Viola]

I wanted to get an opinion about what's been going on with my incubator the first day (I had posted this on my own thread somewhere else before I found this one) Here's what I wrote:

I just started incubating my first batch of eggs and I'm so nervous/excited! I have 25 various breeds (some from my own girls and some that were given to me from a friend's flock) I have read a bunch on incubating eggs and really hope this goes well. I figured I would post on here my"journey" in hatching.
I have a still air incubator for now (I want to update that later...maybe next hatch or so) The thread "Hatching 101" has been a wonderful source of information for me so far.
I made sure to regulate my temps for a few days before I put eggs in there but the first morning after I started them (I started them in the evening), the temp shot up to 104* in the incubator. ( I have 3 different types of thermometers in there..one of them is a probe inside of a water wiggler to help get an idea of internal temp.that one wasn't as high, but it said 102*) How detrimental to the eggs is it that it got so high? I turned it down just a touch and it went lower than I wanted it to go(100* with the high number and 98.9* with the internal probe. I have since gotten the temp to stabilize..will these temp swings badly effect my hatch or not to much of a worry? I can't wait to candle my first eggs on day 7...waiting somewhat patiently lol

Edited to add: Also, my humidity was really high for a little while (49%) It's at 44% now but should I go ahead a take a bit out since it's on the higher end of the scale? (and did I really give my eggs a bad start with both of these issues I've had so far or should it probably be ok?)

how long was it at 104F? It takes some time to bring the internal egg temperature as high as the incubator temperature.. so it could depend if it was a quick spike or an extended period of time (days?). I think your eggs are going to be okay I have had a spike that high and had chicks hatch

make sure you take the temperature at the same level as the top of the egg, the bottom of the egg will be a few degrees lower.

when you add water, the temperature goes down. so if you remove water, you may see an overall spike and have to balance it out again - just keep it in mind.

I think 30% is about perfect humidity for my area.. I live in Oregon and my house humidity is about 50%, I also leave the 2 air vents open the whole time which helps the incubator regulate humidity from the room it is in.

if you run around 49% for a while, it's okay it won't harm anything. it is all about the average total humidity - the goal here is that the eggs evaporate and lose 13% of their water weight (I weigh the eggs to track weight). so, if it is too high for a time, you can lower it for the next X amount of days to make up for it and even it out overall

 

[Rodriguez]

Wait i dont understand. Why do you need humidity when incubating eggs and not when the hen goes broody?

 

[gimmie birdies]

the hen has moisture just being a hen- but I dry hatch and encourage anyone who hatches to read about dry hatch.

 

[Joshua G]

Quote: There are Pekins,Rouens,and Saxonys.

 

[Rodriguez]

Okay let me read about dry hatching.

 

[gimmie birdies]

look on farmer viola's page at the bottom in blue she has an article about dry hatching

 

[Rodriguez]

Okay thank you will try if i figure out how. Im kinda new.