Little Giant Hatch Along

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Well, which is better, stable temps, but cool...or hugely varied temps, but sometimes warmer? LOL. Those are my choices unfortunately. There is absolutely nowhere that will be able to be 70-75 degrees in my house. Ever!

Can you use a heating mat or pad to set the incubator on to help keep it a bit warmer?

 

[Mommysongbird]

Quote:
Did you read my last post? Our house only stays in the 60's, lower to mid and ours is sitting in our dining room which is probably on the colder end of that. I just try to get the temp to go to and stay at the 99.5 to the 100.5 area. It has been as high as 102 in the last couple of days, but all I did was pull one of the red plugs for the temp to go back down. If it was too low I would wrap it with the big beach towel that I have under the bator. If you can get it to stay around the 98 to at least the 99.5 or just above, that would be good. I am no expert, but this is what has helped with mine.

Hope this helps.

 

[aveca]

Quote:
I always have trouble with LG and lockdown humidty..I say year after year Im going to get a different bator but every year I play mad scientist with this LG.. having said that..once you get the hang of running LG and it is very touchy in the controls..you can get some hice hatchs. Ive been using still air with auto turner.

I set 20 eggs in feb..It was horrible winter..blizzard after blizzard , had to shovel a path just so chickens could get outside a little bit..so wasnt sure how fertility would be...out of 20 eggs..15 were fertile so little bit of a suprise..removed the 5 infertile eggs at 8 days..the rest developed but 1 quit around day 8 pr so..
It was a bit of a staggered hatch as I gathered a few of the 20 eggs after setting , 20 was number all together..and in this weather you have to grab them right out of the chicken or they freeze solid.. these were for a family in Pa that drove up to get them end of feb..they wanted 10 chicks..9 had hatched the rest were still hatching. since the other eggs had not pipped yet I quickly removed the drying off chicks to brooder..the 10th still hadnt hatched all thge way by the time they had to leave..(slow poke) when the family came to pick up their group, and they coudlnt wait so off they went with 9 babies ..I have the remainder of that hatch..OH and for reasons Unknown..one died at hatch time..It looked like baby was too big and air cell to small despite dry hatch//but you never really know why those things happen..
that family dropped off 6 blk orps for me from south Pa so that was nice..been coveting those birds forever..finnally got some..we did a coordinated hatch to time it that way.

here are some of them hatching in LG.
SO Lg isnt so bad once you learn its quirks..I have to admit..I never sleep well running it..for that reason I would like to try a differnt one..once the baies start making a bit of thier own heat they can spike temps too especially if thier are a lot of eggs in there.

here are 9 (one is out of sight)

 

[aveca]

Quote:
Mine are always all over the place .we heat with wood stove so no such thing as stable at our house...as long as temps move is within reason , you will be OK..better a little bit cooler than too hot..I try to run still air between 100 and 102-- 101 being perfect for me..but when I work or trying to sleep .I might tweak it down just a tad..last night I uped it a little then couldnt sleep all night..up every 2 hours like a worried mother checking the temps..very touchy controls.

 

[youngbiddy]

If you can keep it where it's 65 and stable, that's better than 60 and stable. I keep mine in the master bath, and the house stays at 65 all winter. My first batch of eggs went in on March 1st, and the temps fluctuated between 98 and 101 the whole time. The day after my first batch hatched, we had a warm spell and the house temp went up to 72 for three days. The temp swing in the bator during that three days was .3 degrees.

Basically, if you get your LG to hold steady at 99.5 for a day (with one plug out) before you put your eggs in, you shouldn't have to touch the knob again. (Mark the base of the knob and the top of the bator so you can tell where it should be set at if it gets fiddled with) You can pull another plug to cool it, or put one or both back in to get it warmer if you have temp swings that make you nervous. You can also do the towel trick referenced above by Mommysongbird if the plugs aren't enough. It's best to avoid messing with the thermostat control.

 

[chicknmania]

I am worried about the humidity in ours, we have the little troughs full, but no humidity gauge, so I am just
guessing that if the troughts are full we should be ok? This is a borrowed incubator and the previous owners
didn't use a gauge and they had a 70% hatch rate or better. Should we use a sponge the last three days in
addition to keeping the troughs full? I've been told humidity is soo important, even more so than stable temps.

 

[chicknmania]

Quote:
This happened to us and the power DID go off. Fortunately I was home! I frantically called our vet who is just down the road,
they kindly let me bring the bator there and plug it in til we had power. I left it there five hours so it stabilize for a while bf I
unplugged it and took it home again. Now the staff is anxiously waiting for those eggs to hatch, too!

 

[Mommysongbird]

Quote:
I have a guage but I am also using sponges in mine too the last 3 days and I still have the rocks in for heat. Our humidity is staying around the 74% to 80% right now, but we just had a major storm, so our house may get cool later and affect the humidity, not sure. I am going to keep my hot water and syringe on hand just in case I need to put more water in the sponges.

This is our first hatch, so I have no idea if the extra sponges and rocks are going to have a positive or negative affect.

 

[kycklingmamma]

Humidity? Can't seem to get it above 60%..which is so silly as I am in humidity corridor of the world..Houston, TX..What do I do..I have 5 small 3.5" x 3.5" containers with water in it and 4 sponges soaked in water..what do I do? I since wrapped my LG in towels to keep the seam more tight..oh and I am in lock down mode as well..with 7 eggs taken from the momma hen on day 14 when she was killed by a coon..my kids and I am hoping badly for at least a few to hatch...how do I up the humidity any more..without going in and letting some out??

 

[HaikuHeritageFarm]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think I just have information overload! There's so much to read and wade through, LOL. Good luck to those of you that are in lockdown now. Keeping my fingers crossed for you! Really excited about this pending hatch. If I can get chicks out of it, they should be an interesting lot!