January 2023 Hatch-a-long

[FunClucks]

Could you guys take a look at my home-made still air incubator and let me know what you think, mainly if you think this will work and how to improve it?

Since I have a staggered hatch (due to being totally new at incubating I put in one egg 3 days after the others, and one egg 8 days after the others), I have put together a still air incubator from materials I had on hand. I plan to put those two eggs, and maybe a third that was added a day after the first batch into the still air incubator while my main batch of chicks hatch in the Nurture Right 360. I will turn them by hand every 4-6 hrs while I'm awake, maybe every 2 hrs in the evenings. I was planning to lay them on their sides on the bottom of the basket and just rotate them 1/4 or 1/3 turn each time.

Day 18 (lockdown) for the main batch of eggs is tomorrow, so I need to be ready to use this still air incubator tomorrow. It's been running for 2 days now, and I think the temp is pretty stable, but the humidity still needs adjustment.

I had half of a kitchen sponge (clean) placed in one of the water cups, but that was giving me 80%+ humidity, so I removed it. Now, I generally get about 47-53% humidity, but it drops to like 37% when I open the lid. I added a small piece of paper towel in one of the cups (laying over the edge so it would continue to wick water). Do I just have to play with changing the amount of surface area that is wet to stabilize the humidity? Should I remove one of the cups and add a smaller piece of sponge? I'm trying to replicate Stage 1 of incubation, so the target is 45-55% RH, correct?

I plan to transfer the eggs back to the Nurture Right once the other chicks are done hatching and each individual egg reaches lockdown.

I've set the setpoint for my temperature controller at 101.0 F. Allowable temperature is 100.5-101.5, correct? I'm measuring the air temperature at the level of the eggs, not the sides or bottom of the plastic basket.

Pressure Canner Still Air Incubator Setup:

1. 30 gallon heavy duty aluminum pressure canner. I don't have the rubber lid gasket in there right now and the stopcock is open so there is air flow through the lock port on the lid. The lid is just resting on top of the canner, not engaged, and it is resting on the temperature probe, so there's a bit of a gap.
2. Zilla reptile temperature controller set to 101.0F.
3. Reptile Basics heat strip covers over half of the canner side wall. You're not really supposed to bend them, but I curved it around the outside of the canner, removed the handles from the pot so that I could get closer to the top edge, and then taped it in place with clear Scotch tape.
4. I put two layers of Reflectix (bubble wrap with Mylar on both sides - it's a decent insulator for when you are insulating things that aren't flat) over the sides of the canner over top of the heat strip and lid of the canner.
5. The canner is sitting on a 1/2" styrofoam panel and two layers of Reflectix on the bottom of the pot (cut out from my old hermit crab tank insulation setup).
6. I placed the canner on an inverted half-height stewpot because the heat strip I have is too wide for the height of the canner, so it was running into the table. You can see it poking out at an angle along the bottom of the canner. I included a picture of a more narrow heat strip by the same manufacturer that I didn't use so you guys can see what I'm talking about.
7. Inside the bottom of the canner are two water bottles and an extra large hot/cold pack gel heating pad (not shown below the silver shelf/tray). Two plastic water bottles are also visible next to the white plastic berry basket. All the water is a thermal heat source, to help keep temps even.
8. Not shown are also two sandwich ziplock bags of decorative glass "rocks". Those are next to the basket as an additional thermal heat source. Those are the only thing I actually bought. If I'd had them sooner I'd've used those instead of the water in the bottom. I thought about sand, but that would get wet and messy in a hurry, and be more of a pain to handle.
9. Accu-Rite hygrometer/temperature gage. I trust my Zilla gage more on temperature, but the hygrometer is probably pretty close. I'll put this into my Nurture Right 360 to double check readings before I move the eggs over to the still air incubator.
10. The white plastic berry basket is where the eggs will go. I have shelf liner I may add in a bit to keep the eggs from rolling when I don't plan for them to.

Anything I forgot? Anything I should change? Suggestions?

 

[sevenhelmet]

My bad, it actually is an octagon. Get ready for some brawls!

It’s my first attempt raising chicks. What shape works better? Square?

 

[CSolis]

Day 7 for 7 eggs!

 

[WallyG74]

It’s my first attempt raising chicks. What shape works better? Square?

Square = boxing ring. Both kinda violent. Maybe they will be peace loving chicks. I’m just being silly. When I saw that shape, a MMA octagon was the first thing that came to mind.

 

[gimmie birdies]

My eggs will be shipped here tomorrow. I am still checking my chicken's eggs, (opening). I will get pictures tomorrow any how. I will take pics of open eggs soon.

 

[Sally PB]

It’s my first attempt raising chicks. What shape works better? Square?

I use an XL dog crate for brooding, and I line it with cardboard. That keeps the chicks from getting out between the bars when they're tiny. I round off the corners though, so none of them can get stuck there and trampled.

 

[gimmie birdies]

He was just teasing, any shape works. Round is good though, for even heat, and octogon would be as similar to round.

 

[sevenhelmet]

Day 14: 11 of 11 eggs look good. The air cells are all solid and most have the slight angle that I see in others’ eggs. About half of the embryos waved at me when I shined a light into their eggs.

The air cells are smaller than I expected, so I’m considering running the incubator dry until lockdown. Have had humidity around 40% so far. Dry would be around 20%.

 

[gimmie birdies]

Good you are checking the air cells.

 

[FunClucks]

Hatch Progress:

So I had one egg quit sometime between day 13 and day 19 (?), and now am down to 23 eggs. I did an eggtopsy on the quitter and found an eye spot, and two main gelatinous masses, sized like a head and body, with hints of a spinal column. No features or feathers or bones, all the vascularization had degenerated. Nothing moved, so I know I didn't kill it, but I'm still a bit sad it didn't make it.

Half my eggs had 11-13% wt loss by Day 18. The other half were somewhere around 7-9%. Three eggs weren't old enough for lockdown, so I placed those in my jurry-rigged pressure canner still air incubator.

Wasn't sure what to do with the main batch of 19 eggs, so I increased humidity in the NurtureRight 360 on Day 19 and now I can't get the water out without disturbing the hatch. If I'd realized, I might have kept humidity at 51-53% another day to help the air cells recede. So it's running at 61-63% humidity, and hatch day is tomorrow. At this point, all I can do is hope, right? Air cells are still receding during lockdown, some more than others (I candled a few that were questionable).

For the eggs in my pressure canner still air incubator, they are running right around 101.5 and 42% humidity. Temp is very stable. Humidity drops when we open the lid to about 30% but bumps up within 15-20 minutes. I was aiming for 47% humidity, but not quite there yet. One of the eggs was only one day behind the main batch - I switched that one over to the NurtureRight last night. I candled today, and the two remining eggs are still alive, and the air cells are receding slightly, so I think I'm doing something right. Egg 23 will need to go in the NurtureRight in 2 days, and Egg 24 will go in 3 days after that, if I remember my math correctly.

Wish me luck!