Last minute incubating!

[CCUK]

You want the incubator to breath. Don't wrap it up, a small temp range is perfectly normal. I've incubated with perfect results and 2.5 F temp swing.

Also I'd not incubate that high of humidity. First 18 days you'll find around 25-35% RH will grow your air cells to proper size. Up to 70% RH for hatch.

The humidity was on 34% this morning. I put some water in and it's gone up to 48%! Then I read this! I'll leave the humidity to go down now.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

There are a multitude of threads on the humidity topic. A quick note on it here is you can candle the eggs to monitor the air cell growth. In all honesty just run the incubator without water and candle day 10. You'll be looking for infertile/earlier quitters then anyway so good night to candle. Take note of the air cell size and know that each egg will be different due to porosity of shells. Ab overall average of air cell size is what you are getting from it. If the cells don't seem too large keep going without water and candle again day 14 or 15. If they look on track keep going....

You can retard or stop the air cell growth at any time by upping the humidity. First time hatchers typically incubate too high of humidity that results in very small or no air cell. The chicks can't breath in that when internally piped so essentially drown. The idea is you want it of good size, by diagram below anything size day 14 and up is fine and you don't want it much larger than day 18 in diagram. Anywhere inbetween is good.

 

[CCUK]

There are a multitude of threads on the humidity topic. A quick note on it here is you can candle the eggs to monitor the air cell growth. In all honesty just run the incubator without water and candle day 10. You'll be looking for infertile/earlier quitters then anyway so good night to candle. Take note of the air cell size and know that each egg will be different due to porosity of shells. Ab overall average of air cell size is what you are getting from it. If the cells don't seem too large keep going without water and candle again day 14 or 15. If they look on track keep going....

You can retard or stop the air cell growth at any time by upping the humidity. First time hatchers typically incubate too high of humidity that results in very small or no air cell. The chicks can't breath in that when internally piped so essentially drown. The idea is you want it of good size, by diagram below anything size day 14 and up is fine and you don't want it much larger than day 18 in diagram. Anywhere inbetween is good.

Thankyou that's a great diagram. The humidity is going down. So I'll let the water dissipate and not add any more. I dry hatched my quail and they did fine. I only added water at lockdown. So basically I'm looking to steadily increase the air cell size. I'm only hoping for 2-3 hens from these. So taking into account non fertile and possible roos, I'm hoping I'm about right!

 

[ronott1]

There are a multitude of threads on the humidity topic. A quick note on it here is you can candle the eggs to monitor the air cell growth. In all honesty just run the incubator without water and candle day 10. You'll be looking for infertile/earlier quitters then anyway so good night to candle. Take note of the air cell size and know that each egg will be different due to porosity of shells. Ab overall average of air cell size is what you are getting from it. If the cells don't seem too large keep going without water and candle again day 14 or 15. If they look on track keep going....

You can retard or stop the air cell growth at any time by upping the humidity. First time hatchers typically incubate too high of humidity that results in very small or no air cell. The chicks can't breath in that when internally piped so essentially drown. The idea is you want it of good size, by diagram below anything size day 14 and up is fine and you don't want it much larger than day 18 in diagram. Anywhere inbetween is good.

There are too many threads on incubation. It is important but not as important as temperature control

Remember what I posted, add water and wait until humidity goes down to the lowest level.

30% humidity is close to the danger zone in incubation. Going below 25% is associated with chick death.

35% to 55% will not make a difference in hatch rate. Wildly varying humidity to control cell size is not a good idea. It can look like the cells are not growing much and get to a perfect size just before hatch

 

[CCUK]

There are too many threads on incubation. It is important but not as important as temperature control

Remember what I posted, add water and wait until humidity goes down to the lowest level.

30% humidity is close to the danger zone in incubation. Going below 25% is associated with chick death.

35% to 55% will not make a difference in hatch rate. Wildly varying humidity to control cell size is not a good idea. It can look like the cells are not growing much and get to a perfect size just before hatch

My humidity is on 36% now so would about 40% be optimal?

 

[CCUK]

Well it's day 4 now. Temperature has been a little unsteady. I think it could be the incubator. It has ranged from 37.5c down to 36.8c. It's above 37c for the best part. Humidity is holding at around 40%. So I'm thinking things are going reasonable. I am a bit worried about the temperature dips but in nature a hen would get of to feed occasionally so the temperature would drop then. I received my new egg candling torch today. It's great. I wasn't sure how well I could see through a Araucana egg but it was as clear as a normal brown egg. I'll candle on day 10 and see what's going on.

 

[CCUK]

Not a very clear picture. And not an egg from the incubator. Just an example!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Your running low temp.

Thought we went over this but will go over again. Your range of temp, high and low, is a range. YOu want the average of that range to be your target temp. So if your target is 37.5 C and your range is 1C then you want the incubator to go to 38 and cool to 37 making the average 37.5. An example there but see your saying you make 37.5 but lows are 36 point something and your usually above 37....uh, that would be an average of 37 C not 37.5 C. Bump your temp up and average the target temp.

Temp is the most critical thing to incubating. Temp swings are like a bird walking off the nest to poop and eat but holding average temp to optimal incubating is what your needing to do.

 

[CCUK]

Your running low temp.

Thought we went over this but will go over again. Your range of temp, high and low, is a range. YOu want the average of that range to be your target temp. So if your target is 37.5 C and your range is 1C then you want the incubator to go to 38 and cool to 37 making the average 37.5. An example there but see your saying you make 37.5 but lows are 36 point something and your usually above 37....uh, that would be an average of 37 C not 37.5 C. Bump your temp up and average the target temp.

Temp is the most critical thing to incubating. Temp swings are like a bird walking off the nest to poop and eat but holding average temp to optimal incubating is what your needing to do.

I've upped the temperature to 37.8c. The temperature did drop to 37.3c. So the avg. is 37.5C now. It seems to have less of a swing being set higher.

 

[CCUK]

Day 9. All looks well. It's been unseasonably hot here for the past few days so I did worry the incubator may get to warm but it has been fine. Temp is 37.5C holding well, not much above or below. Humidity has been 35-40%. I candled the eggs today and I cannot see through the Shell. I can see they are a little lighter at the bottom and no light seems to penetrate the middle. There is a small air sac at the top. It may be better with a more powerful torch to be able to see any blood vessels but with them being so dark it seems that 8/8 are viable at the moment.