Little Giant Hatch Along

[kupi99]

Good news, and kinda bad news.

Yesterday was day 7, and I candled all 4 of my eggs (so many, I know!). The good news is non of them are infertile, and they all appear be developing. The bad news is after 2 days of steady temps, I started having low temps for a few days (in the 98's), and they all look they've developed to about day 5, instead of day 7. This is prob, b/c I don't really have time for a delayed hatch this year. The chicks ared due on the 18, and out last day of school before the break is the 20th! So all little chickies must be out by then.
I'm trying to get the temps back up and steady. Here's hoping everyone comes out on time!

 

[BarefootMom]

Quote:
From what I have read and understand the rocks are to help with heat and humidity. Not sure how they help with humidity, but rocks abosord heat, so when your thermostat turns off to cool, you still have heat in the bator.

Hope this is right, I am a first timer, so that is my understanding.

Anyone else??

hmmm I haven't had any issues so I guess I don't need to worry about it? Does it have something to do with not having a full bator? I have 55 eggs in my LG...with room for possibly 3-4 more eggs, but I wanted an easy to remember number lol

 

[Mommysongbird]

Quote:
From what I have read and understand the rocks are to help with heat and humidity. Not sure how they help with humidity, but rocks abosord heat, so when your thermostat turns off to cool, you still have heat in the bator.

Hope this is right, I am a first timer, so that is my understanding.

Anyone else??

hmmm I haven't had any issues so I guess I don't need to worry about it? Does it have something to do with not having a full bator? I have 55 eggs in my LG...with room for possibly 3-4 more eggs, but I wanted an easy to remember number lol

That's great that you haven't had any problems, I did in the beginning, but now it is okay.

Not sure if it has to do with how full/empty the bator is. We have 19 and I think I will be tossing 2 before Friday??

 

[kupi99]

Quote:
hmmm I haven't had any issues so I guess I don't need to worry about it? Does it have something to do with not having a full bator? I have 55 eggs in my LG...with room for possibly 3-4 more eggs, but I wanted an easy to remember number lol

That's great that you haven't had any problems, I did in the beginning, but now it is okay.

Not sure if it has to do with how full/empty the bator is. We have 19 and I think I will be tossing 2 before Friday??

Yes, I think it does. I've done it with my hatches, and I only have a few eggs to put in when I hatch.

 

[youngbiddy]

The more eggs you have in the bator the more thermal mass you have. That does help if you lose power temporarily; lots of eggs will take longer to cool than say, 6. The rocks are for the same purpose; they act as a heat sink. Having something in the very bottom absorbing and radiating heat helped me even out my temps till I installed a fan.

 

[StormyMoon]

Quote:
How did you get a hole in your knob?

None of mine have that. But you have given great info

What I do is when I find my sweet spot where temps hold I take a black permanent marker and make a line from the top of the knob down to the arrows on the silver paper below.

I agree about the room temperature too. My room fluxes between 70 Degrees and 89 degrees and I still keep hatching eggs. When I finally stop messing with the knob my chicks started hatching.

If anything I will try to keep my room cool just so I don't have to deal with long periods of spikes.

 

[artathart]

In this moment I want to take my incubator and toss it out the window....But I cannot. I calibrated my Digital thremometer last night in crushed ice and water and it was 32.2 so it was near perfect and now I feel I can trust it better. Yesterday for soem reason my LG held a steady temp with only minor adjustments in the am and pm. Well today, not so lucky. Its all over the place. Worse its ever been it will go from 103 to 97 degrees from just the slightest touch of the knob so I am having a hard time setting it. Been 2 hours so far and no luck. I have sooooo much I need to do and have company coming over at 5 and I cannot get anything done or go anywhere because I have to babby sit my LG. I have also learned in calibrating my digital that my LG one is like 2-3 degrees off and is worthless. Of course.

So I did get one horrible picture from day 5 (Yesterday)

I only have a few eggs that look like this out of 26 so while that is not good news, at least this hacth wont be a total loss unless the LG kills them. I think I have about 5 that are scrambled and some that are infertile.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

It's really too early to tell at day 5. If you keep messing with the temp knob any incubator will fluctuate. You've got to have some faith and patience. My LG had varring temps throughout the incubator but adjusted it to have 100F through the majority then put the eggs in and left the knob alone. Don't give up on eggs until day 14 or more to show development; I say that as I was surprised my last candling.

 

[kycklingmamma]

Ok..hi guys..I am a newbie incubator hatcher as my brooder buff orp. was killed by a raccon night between saturday and sunday..I've gotten a LG, by monday seems to be working good..we are today on day 16..candled all my seven eggs on day 14..they all have movements in them, some are further gone than others..hope that is OK..we are just desperately trying to save at least a few as my children are devestated..

My temp is 99.5-101..ranging but since it is still air I believe that to be OK...humidity....just gota hygrameter..it is holding at 52%..is that OK..??

Thanks guys,

 

[chickflick247]

Hi KycklingMamma, The temps look great. I got my eggs from McMurrey and the instructions from them say temps with a still air bator should be between 100.5 - 102.5. The humidity should be between 50% and 55% for the first 18 days then up to 65%. This is my first hatching so I don't have experience to speak from. Mcmurrey is a pretty reputable hatchary. Hope that helps.