Lavender patterned Isabel duckwing barred - lavender brown cuckoo barred - project and genetic dis

[Kiki]

I think..only read this somewhere on this site...something can be added to the bator to lower humidity...
hmm...can't remember what it is though.

Camp is an expert hatcher...she will know the answer to this..both your question and the "item" I am referring to.

 

[campingshaws]

Depending on egg type/size, I run 25-30% during incubation, but I don't add water unless it gets below 20%. That is totally dry in my styro. Some folks weigh eggs, I just watch the air cells. I don't start lockdown until in start to see drawn down in the air cells. Then I put them on their sides and bring humidity to 60-65%.

Did you hatch upright or on their sides? According to Sally sides are best because even if there is too much fluid in the egg, when they pip upright the fluid will be pooled at the bottom, so no drowning.

My honas were are very sticky, but my isabels and mixes popped right out.

 

[ChicKat]

I think..only read this somewhere on this site...something can be added to the bator to lower humidity...
hmm...can't remember what it is though.

Camp is an expert hatcher...she will know the answer to this..both your question and the "item" I am referring to.

Thank you!

Depending on egg type/size, I run 25-30% during incubation, but I don't add water unless it gets below 20%. That is totally dry in my styro. Some folks weigh eggs, I just watch the air cells. I don't start lockdown until in start to see drawn down in the air cells. Then I put them on their sides and bring humidity to 60-65%.

Did you hatch upright or on their sides? According to Sally sides are best because even if there is too much fluid in the egg, when they pip upright the fluid will be pooled at the bottom, so no drowning.

My honas were are very sticky, but my isabels and mixes popped right out.

That makes a lot of sense.... my humidity is higher -- even with no water added, but I could turn on airconditioning in that room and it would dehumidify the air. --

Sides for sure

Congrats on a good Isabel hatch -- they can be tricky. Have you gotten past the hatchability problems and death in the first week that they were experiencing so often about 3-4 years back? I love my Isabels - and they are gorgeous -- but they seem to be a bit more fragile, and vulnerable than my other breeds. Except my Isabel roo -- he is tough stuff. Just love that guy.

Honas sticky even with the same incubator conditions -- so then it would point in my mind to something to do with the breed or the shells themselves.

 

[campingshaws]

 
I think..only read this somewhere on this site...something can be added to the bator to lower humidity...
hmm...can't remember what it is though.

Camp is an expert hatcher...she will know the answer to this..both your question and the "item" I am referring to.

Thank you!

Depending on egg type/size, I run 25-30% during incubation, but I don't add water unless it gets below 20%. That is totally dry in my styro. Some folks weigh eggs, I just watch the air cells. I don't start lockdown until in start to see drawn down in the air cells. Then I put them on their sides and bring humidity to 60-65%.


Did you hatch upright or on their sides? According to Sally sides are best because even if there is too much fluid in the egg, when they pip upright the fluid will be pooled at the bottom, so no drowning.


My honas were are very sticky, but my isabels and mixes popped right out.

That makes a lot of sense.... my humidity is higher -- even with no water added, but I could turn on airconditioning in that room and it would dehumidify the air. -- 

Sides for sure

Congrats on a good Isabel hatch -- they can be tricky.  Have you gotten past the hatchability problems and death in the first week that they were experiencing so often about 3-4 years back?  I love my Isabels - and they are gorgeous -- but they seem to be a bit more fragile, and vulnerable than my other breeds.   Except my Isabel roo -- he is tough stuff.  Just love that guy. 

Honas sticky even with the same incubator conditions -- so then it would point in my mind to something to do with the breed or the shells themselves.  

Hona eggs are small, and these were pullet eggs so shells were extra dense. I don't think they lost enough weight. It was the first hatch, too, and I've heard winter eggs aren't as hatchable. And they hadn't been stored properly... Lots of variables. I need to try again to see if they do better.

The only isabels I have are from you! So they're not pure isabel. I'm just not sure what to call them without typing out the whole project name every time.

Edit: Kiki is talking about uncooked rice.

 

[ChicKat]

Hona eggs are small, and these were pullet eggs so shells were extra dense. I don't think they lost enough weight. It was the first hatch, too, and I've heard winter eggs aren't as hatchable. And they hadn't been stored properly... Lots of variables. I need to try again to see if they do better.

The only isabels I have are from you! So they're not pure isabel. I'm just not sure what to call them without typing out the whole project name every time.

Edit: Kiki is talking about uncooked rice.

Oh- I'm sorry -- my dyslexia kicked in -- I was talking about Isbars being hard to hatch and not Isabels. Brain fade for sure. The brain messenger went to the filing cabinet marked 'I' and brought back the wrong file.

Okay -- put a bowl of uncooked rice in the incubator? -- They do put rice in salt shakers where it's humid.

I just checked on little stuck chick:

Right by my thumb, that lighter patch is 'glued' membrane that I didn't get off at bath time -- and there is even a fragment of shell there-- Thinking I will just let it drop off by itself...and it looks like that discoloration on the head may also be a bit of eggshell lining. You forget how LITTLE and cute they are -- and they grow so fast.

 

[ChicKat]

While I was out there -- the big-kid brooder grabbed a shot - (different camera- auto flashed them) -- Now I see 5 for sure males and the one standing right in the feeder in the center -- dunno? Female with big comb, or late developing boy.

Any opinions ?

ETA - there are some little crests coming in on this bunch too....

 

[Finnie]

I'm no expert, but I can concur that incubating "drier" helped me. Last year I was incubating in my garage, and I couldn't get the humidity low enough, and I had lots of chicks drown in their goo when they zipped down to where it pooled. Some of them even drowned at pip, if the goo ooozed out the hole. This was both upright and on their sides. I was told to put a dish of kitty litter in the incubator to help dry it out. Someone else told me another kind of desiccant, but I can't remember what it was. (I didn't resort to either one.) What I did do was drill more vent holes, which reduced the RH. That helped the hatches that were newer, but not the ones that were already one or two weeks in. (Homemade bator, so easy enough to add holes.)

Now I only add water if RH falls below 20%. Only enough water to get it into the 30s. Then for lockdown I crank it up to 65-70%. I have had a few 100% hatches this year!

I did notice last year that some hens' eggs were weaker and more prone to dying, and one specific hen was awesome, and her chicks almost always hatched. Or if they were drowning, fewer of hers drowned.

Disclaimer: I do not weigh, nor mark air cells other than at lockdown. And that's just so I know which side to lay facing upwards. (Which doesn't always help, cuz they often pip on the bottom anyway.)

 

[ChicKat]

I'm no expert, but I can concur that incubating "drier" helped me. Last year I was incubating in my garage, and I couldn't get the humidity low enough, and I had lots of chicks drown in their goo when they zipped down to where it pooled. Some of them even drowned at pip, if the goo ooozed out the hole. This was both upright and on their sides. I was told to put a dish of kitty litter in the incubator to help dry it out. Someone else told me another kind of desiccant, but I can't remember what it was. (I didn't resort to either one.) What I did do was drill more vent holes, which reduced the RH. That helped the hatches that were newer, but not the ones that were already one or two weeks in. (Homemade bator, so easy enough to add holes.)

Now I only add water if RH falls below 20%. Only enough water to get it into the 30s. Then for lockdown I crank it up to 65-70%. I have had a few 100% hatches this year!

I did notice last year that some hens' eggs were weaker and more prone to dying, and one specific hen was awesome, and her chicks almost always hatched. Or if they were drowning, fewer of hers drowned.

Disclaimer: I do not weigh, nor mark air cells other than at lockdown. And that's just so I know which side to lay facing upwards. (Which doesn't always help, cuz they often pip on the bottom anyway.)

That's good to know. Thanks! My air cells are always larger than the 'perfect' diagrams - so a tweak to reduce humidity could bump up my hatch rate. (And as you note too -- each incubator is a bit different and I have a couple of types going on here at present)
Congrats on getting yours tuned to where you have those 100% hatches.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Quote:
You've already gotten most of the answers I was going to give, but I use Brinseas and have found that I needed to incubate the CL eggs from Lissa at about 25-30% to get the right weight loss. (My first Cl hatch was lots of sticky goopy chicks, and a few died, because humidity was too high). But this year I also found that for one young group of maran and OE pullets, their eggs must have been porous or something, because they lost moisture WAY too fast compared to the NN eggs I was incubating - I had to move them to a different incubator on day 7 and incubate them at something insane like 60%. I use weight loss (inexpensive high accuracy small jewelers scale I got on Amazon) to adjust humidity (weigh them the day they go in, and then when I candle - expected weight loss 0.65% per day). I have an auto-calculating spread sheet I created that I can share if you are interested.

If you run dry and the incubator doesn't have a lot of gaps, you should be able to get the humidity down on the inside, but as mentioned earlier, you can use a small container of uncooked rice as well.

- Ant Farm

 

[campingshaws]

I'm no expert, but I can concur that incubating "drier" helped me. Last year I was incubating in my garage, and I couldn't get the humidity low enough, and I had lots of chicks drown in their goo when they zipped down to where it pooled. Some of them even drowned at pip, if the goo ooozed out the hole. This was both upright and on their sides. I was told to put a dish of kitty litter in the incubator to help dry it out. Someone else told me another kind of desiccant, but I can't remember what it was. (I didn't resort to either one.) What I did do was drill more vent holes, which reduced the RH. That helped the hatches that were newer, but not the ones that were already one or two weeks in. (Homemade bator, so easy enough to add holes.)

Now I only add water if RH falls below 20%. Only enough water to get it into the 30s. Then for lockdown I crank it up to 65-70%. I have had a few 100% hatches this year!

I did notice last year that some hens' eggs were weaker and more prone to dying, and one specific hen was awesome, and her chicks almost always hatched. Or if they were drowning, fewer of hers drowned.

Disclaimer: I do not weigh, nor mark air cells other than at lockdown. And that's just so I know which side to lay facing upwards. (Which doesn't always help, cuz they often pip on the bottom anyway.)

How often are you turning? How large are your air cells? High rate of mal positioned chicks would indicate inadequate turning or overly large aircells-- chick lacks room to turn and maneuver itself into hatch position.

I'm no expert, but I can concur that incubating "drier" helped me. Last year I was incubating in my garage, and I couldn't get the humidity low enough, and I had lots of chicks drown in their goo when they zipped down to where it pooled. Some of them even drowned at pip, if the goo ooozed out the hole. This was both upright and on their sides. I was told to put a dish of kitty litter in the incubator to help dry it out. Someone else told me another kind of desiccant, but I can't remember what it was. (I didn't resort to either one.) What I did do was drill more vent holes, which reduced the RH. That helped the hatches that were newer, but not the ones that were already one or two weeks in. (Homemade bator, so easy enough to add holes.)


Now I only add water if RH falls below 20%. Only enough water to get it into the 30s. Then for lockdown I crank it up to 65-70%. I have had a few 100% hatches this year!


I did notice last year that some hens' eggs were weaker and more prone to dying, and one specific hen was awesome, and her chicks almost always hatched. Or if they were drowning, fewer of hers drowned.


Disclaimer: I do not weigh, nor mark air cells other than at lockdown. And that's just so I know which side to lay facing upwards. (Which doesn't always help, cuz they often pip on the bottom anyway.)

That's good to know.  Thanks!   My air cells are always larger than the 'perfect' diagrams - so a tweak to reduce humidity could bump up my hatch rate.  (And as you note too -- each incubator is a bit different and I have a couple of types going on here at present)
Congrats on getting yours tuned to where you have those 100% hatches. 

If air cells are too large it indicates too much weight is lost. Slight increase in humidity to put them in track.