Janoel Incubation Experience

[Lyss]

We don't really go spot lighting much. Usually go out of a morning with the dogs who track the pigs and hold them till we get there to dispatch them. Its great exercise as sometimes your running up a mountain to get to your dog and the pig before it possibly hurts your dog. The dogs wear chest plates to protect them from the pigs tusks. Picture of the plate on my dog Jove. He now as a better one which covers the tops of his legs better. My dogs are pets first and hunters second so they are very well looked after. This same dog that hunts pigs also mothers ducklings lol.



So do you plan to incubate in your janoel and hatch in the new ones?

 

[Heron's Nest Farm]

We don't really go spot lighting much. Usually go out of a morning with the dogs who track the pigs and hold them till we get there to dispatch them. Its great exercise as sometimes your running up a mountain to get to your dog and the pig before it possibly hurts your dog. The dogs wear chest plates to protect them from the pigs tusks. Picture of the plate on my dog Jove. He now as a better one which covers the tops of his legs better. My dogs are pets first and hunters second so they are very well looked after. This same dog that hunts pigs also mothers ducklings lol.



So do you plan to incubate in your janoel and hatch in the new ones?

Wow! That is really smart with your dogs. I didn't know they made armor for dogs, but that makes sense. I bet your dogs get excited when you put the armor on!

My morning was brightened when I went out to the trap and found I had finally vanquished my skunk foe, but not before he took 3 chicks, 8 eggs and a 3 month pullet. We use HavAHart traps, so We dispatched him with a 22 quickly. I try to be as quick as possible.

I STILL can't figure out how he was getting into the breeding pen?! I almost wish I had bought a wildlife camera before I caught him.

What kind of dogs are those? Healer? brindle pit?

Yes, I am going to keep my Janoel for incubating for now. However, I may buy another one for hatching as I really like the plastic grate on it. The temp is holding beautifully with the insulation. I have settled on 37.4 for incubation. I have 2 mercury thermometers and they are both reading the same making me feel more confident this time around.

 

[WVduckchick]

We don't really go spot lighting much. Usually go out of a morning with the dogs who track the pigs and hold them till we get there to dispatch them. Its great exercise as sometimes your running up a mountain to get to your dog and the pig before it possibly hurts your dog. The dogs wear chest plates to protect them from the pigs tusks. Picture of the plate on my dog Jove. He now as a better one which covers the tops of his legs better. My dogs are pets first and hunters second so they are very well looked after. This same dog that hunts pigs also mothers ducklings lol.



So do you plan to incubate in your janoel and hatch in the new ones?

Those sure are some beautiful dogs! And I absolutely love the pic with the duckies. I would not have been able to snap a picture fast enough, if I had let my dog get that close when mine were that little. I might have captured a few feathers in his mouth before he swallowed them! haha Thank goodness they are getting big enough to snap back at him a little. They will put him in his place eventually.

Wow! That is really smart with your dogs. I didn't know they made armor for dogs, but that makes sense. I bet your dogs get excited when you put the armor on!

My morning was brightened when I went out to the trap and found I had finally vanquished my skunk foe, but not before he took 3 chicks, 8 eggs and a 3 month pullet. We use HavAHart traps, so We dispatched him with a 22 quickly. I try to be as quick as possible.

I STILL can't figure out how he was getting into the breeding pen?! I almost wish I had bought a wildlife camera before I caught him.

What kind of dogs are those? Healer? brindle pit?

Yes, I am going to keep my Janoel for incubating for now. However, I may buy another one for hatching as I really like the plastic grate on it. The temp is holding beautifully with the insulation. I have settled on 37.4 for incubation. I have 2 mercury thermometers and they are both reading the same making me feel more confident this time around.

37.4?? Wow! Mine is set at 38.0 to keep it averaging high enough. I have 3 thermometers in there now. I'm a bit disappointed with the new Brinsea Spot Check. It will dip to 97.5 and go up to about 99.4. The main one I trusted for the ducks fluctuates from 98.6-101.2, (its hanging from the top grate, about an inch dangle) and my other one has no decimal, it stays on 99 all the time. It sits on the floor between the center two turner trays, but its large, so the sensor is about egg high. For the Brinsea, I took an egg carton and cut one egg out, tied it to the turner, cut a slit in it, and stuck the wire of the Brinsea through it, so the probe lays at egg level, not touching anything. So who the heck knows... haha! But I think for week 3, I am going to drop the set temp to 37.8 or 37.9. I'm afraid they will all hatch too soon if I don't. Or maybe I should just leave it alone and find out. Ugh.

 

[Heron's Nest Farm]

Those sure are some beautiful dogs! And I absolutely love the pic with the duckies. I would not have been able to snap a picture fast enough, if I had let my dog get that close when mine were that little. I might have captured a few feathers in his mouth before he swallowed them! haha Thank goodness they are getting big enough to snap back at him a little. They will put him in his place eventually.



37.4?? Wow! Mine is set at 38.0 to keep it averaging high enough. I have 3 thermometers in there now. I'm a bit disappointed with the new Brinsea Spot Check. It will dip to 97.5 and go up to about 99.4. The main one I trusted for the ducks fluctuates from 98.6-101.2, (its hanging from the top grate, about an inch dangle) and my other one has no decimal, it stays on 99 all the time. It sits on the floor between the center two turner trays, but its large, so the sensor is about egg high. For the Brinsea, I took an egg carton and cut one egg out, tied it to the turner, cut a slit in it, and stuck the wire of the Brinsea through it, so the probe lays at egg level, not touching anything. So who the heck knows... haha! But I think for week 3, I am going to drop the set temp to 37.8 or 37.9. I'm afraid they will all hatch too soon if I don't. Or maybe I should just leave it alone and find out. Ugh.

The temp thing is driving me bonko. It is hard to trust. I decided to stick with this temp as the two thermometers are reading the same. The digitals I have read higher! So maybe trusting them last time killed some of my eggs? I figure I will stick with this and see the hatch rate. I was higher on my first hatch and lower on the second- hatch rates were 55%, BUT I feel the eggs got chilled in lockdown. The insulation was a perfect idea.

Anyone ever hatched in the styrofoam bator?

I remembered I have a little 2.5 foot by 4.5 foot fridge in the bus I could convert to a bator....hmmmm......

 

[Lyss]

Wow! That is really smart with your dogs. I didn't know they made armor for dogs, but that makes sense. I bet your dogs get excited when you put the armor on!

My morning was brightened when I went out to the trap and found I had finally vanquished my skunk foe, but not before he took 3 chicks, 8 eggs and a 3 month pullet. We use HavAHart traps, so We dispatched him with a 22 quickly. I try to be as quick as possible.

I STILL can't figure out how he was getting into the breeding pen?! I almost wish I had bought a wildlife camera before I caught him.

What kind of dogs are those? Healer? brindle pit?

Yes, I am going to keep my Janoel for incubating for now. However, I may buy another one for hatching as I really like the plastic grate on it. The temp is holding beautifully with the insulation. I have settled on 37.4 for incubation. I have 2 mercury thermometers and they are both reading the same making me feel more confident this time around.

Yep they get excited. I believe in America they hunt a bit differently with the dogs but they still have the chest plates. Not sure what type of breed he is. My dogs the one on the end of the ute tray, friends own the other two. My boy came from the pound so his breeding is unknown all we know about him is that the ranger found him half starved abandoned in a back yard when he was 6 mnths old then we got him. You couldn't get a better dog, people are horrible. We also own a great dane/boxer/bull arab x girl who we brought from a pig dog breeder.

Yikes, that skunk wiped out a lot. How big are they... surely fairly big to get a pullet?

What do you have in your incubator this time? I think my janoel tends to be hotter then it reads as my hatches were early. Though I haven't tried hatching in cooler weather yet which may effect it.

Those sure are some beautiful dogs! And I absolutely love the pic with the duckies. I would not have been able to snap a picture fast enough, if I had let my dog get that close when mine were that little. I might have captured a few feathers in his mouth before he swallowed them! haha Thank goodness they are getting big enough to snap back at him a little. They will put him in his place eventually.



37.4?? Wow! Mine is set at 38.0 to keep it averaging high enough. I have 3 thermometers in there now. I'm a bit disappointed with the new Brinsea Spot Check. It will dip to 97.5 and go up to about 99.4. The main one I trusted for the ducks fluctuates from 98.6-101.2, (its hanging from the top grate, about an inch dangle) and my other one has no decimal, it stays on 99 all the time. It sits on the floor between the center two turner trays, but its large, so the sensor is about egg high. For the Brinsea, I took an egg carton and cut one egg out, tied it to the turner, cut a slit in it, and stuck the wire of the Brinsea through it, so the probe lays at egg level, not touching anything. So who the heck knows... haha! But I think for week 3, I am going to drop the set temp to 37.8 or 37.9. I'm afraid they will all hatch too soon if I don't. Or maybe I should just leave it alone and find out. Ugh.

Yeah he mothers everything he was so heart broken when they grew up and wouldn't let him lick them anymore. He still tries to make himself small and crawl over to them but lets out a big puff and stops when they move away from him. His also great with my ISA brown hens, so is my other dog. Though it has its bad points when the chickens think every dogs the same, one of my hens nearly got eaten one day walking over to a friends dog.

What type ducks do you have? Do they come from your own ducks or did you ship the eggs?

 

[WVduckchick]

I'm just starting with all my "farm" animals. My SIL has a mini-farm with a bunch of animals! Last fall she asked me if I'd like to take her excess 3 drakes for my pond. Ducks have always been my favorite. So I accepted and she also brought me 5 roosters she needed to get rid of. We have an 80-acre camp (which now seems to be turning into a farm) about 45 minutes from our home. We use it primarily for weekends, and hunting. But it has a nice pond. So anyway, By the time we were able to build a coop, we lost 3 roosters to predators. Then we lost the 3 drakes to a worse-than-normal winter storm. She was also incubating chicks, so I thought that would be fun. So I bought my incubator with 7 EE eggs inside, on day 12! Haha, that was not the best idea I have ever had! Lost all of them, but decided I wanted ducks anyway. So I found a local gal on Craigslist and bought Blue/Black/Splash Swedish eggs, and Slate turkeys. I wanted the ducks, and my SIL wanted turkeys. The gal wasn't sure of the fertility on the turkeys, so she gave me 4 turkeyy eggs. I ended up hatching 4 beautiful little duckies and one Self-Blue turkey! And the incubating bug bit me!! The ducks were a little mean to the turkey as babies, so I bought 2 golden comet baby girls at a local feed store to keep the turkey company so I could move them away from the ducks. So now I have four 1-month-old ducklings, 2 comets, and 1 turkey. Plus 2 adult roosters at camp (one big beautiful dark Brahma and the other is a mix of some sort lol)

Now to my update on my incubation... Day 14, candled and weighed all my lavender orpingtons this morning. 14 eggs, all doing great!! 2 eggs are a bit on the small side, and their air cells look a little small, and they have lost less weight than the others, but I'm hoping they will be ok. Weight loss should be around 10% by now. One of those has only lost 7% and the other has lost 9%. The other 12 chickys have lost 11-12%. But they all show great activity level, the space is filling up well, the blood vessels look good.... so I am very hopeful! One more week!!! EEEEeeeeee

Here are my 4 little guys, Chibs, Juice, Opie, and Tiggy
This pic is about a week old... they change so quickly!



Andy my comets and turkey - Tara, Gemma (turkey), and Wendy



Opie at one day old:


Opie and Chibs now. Check out Opie's crest! Isn't it adorable? lol



Sorry this turned into a book. I edited it down some, but my teachers always said I talk too much!

 

[narragansett1]

does any one by chance have a pic on the heating unit i just bought one of these incubators and noticed a lot of comments about the heating element going out i was thinking after this first hatch to put my spar little giant heater in my unit could that work..

 

[Heron's Nest Farm]

does any one by chance have a pic on the heating unit i just bought one of these incubators and noticed a lot of comments about the heating element going out i was thinking after this first hatch to put my spar little giant heater in my unit could that work..

I do not have a pic of the heating unit. You will see on the Janoel that there is a grate at the top that screws in to protect the chicks from the heating element (unlike the Farm Innovators one I have). I believe that you will be able to affix your new unit somehow if needed in the future or sinpley let it rest on the grate as it appears that your new heating unit is self contained. Just guessing. Great idea.


WVChick That pic of Opie as a baby makes me want ducks even more! I am excited for your lavenders. I went ahead and purchased 3 chicks that I get at the end of the month. I will get eggs in the fall so I will have 2 bloodlines for breeding! Glad to hear your weights look good.

I forgot to weigh this time

I feel so stupid! But the air cells look good and I followed a similar humidity protocol as last time when weight loss was perfect. Crossing fingers. A few of my eggs don't have a ton of movement, but it is getting close to lockdown, so.... I think I lockdown 2 days before you? I lockdown the 20th in the am.

I'm going down for the count as I sit here typing. Nose running and that feeling of immune system humming.....yuck.

 

[casportpony]

Here is the lid of a Janoel:

The round thing is the heating element. Does that help?

-Kathy

 

[narragansett1]

i think mine is different than that i might have the knockoff my heater is behind the fan but as of right now I'm loving my incubator it is much steadier then my little giant 9300 the only problem is i have 2 dozen eggs in there that all have detached air cells from shipping but as of right now I'm really impressed with this unit any one with any tips for detached air cells as of right now the eggs have been in for 1 day i have not turned them and I'm doing a dry incubator i have the eggs in the turner with it unplugged when i plug it in does it just move slow or does it turn the eggs in one shot...