Little Giant Incubator Tricks

[quailtrail]

Hot hot hot! !!! Had to work today. Flew home so I could check thr newest chicks. 6 thriving eating and drinking and stinking cute!!!!

♡

The poor 7th (1st to hatch day 19) did up her little leg and foot. She got out of the foot wrapping. Her toes are just so curled. Tried to do up her legs and in place now but she can't sit or walk at all  she just falls over???

Unhatched eggs - the one that took out a gd piece of its shell day 19 is still there. I can't see the beak anymore so I wonder if it turned inside??? Still breathing but not much else. Another is half zipped and that little chick is taking its time. And another pipped today. ..so 10 out of 11 so far. Today is #21.

So I am thinking to leave that egg alone right? Its been pipped since late Thursday nite.

Any other ideas for the chick with the leg and toes? I tried the links and ideas provided. Leg seems more stable but those toes are still curled...poor thing

 

[griggy]

Be sure to candle the eggs and compare to an online diagram that you can print out for comparison. Look for a diagram to your liking, some are color and some black and white" Air cells on day 7th, 14th and 18th of incubation" .

Hopefully the air cells are right on target!!

That is important as it helps to decide if you should delay "lockdown' or proceed.

If air cells are goodk up the humidity to about 60% using a small jar and sponge poking out. Use as many as necessary to reach that level ish.

How have the temps been running-- a little high, a little low, or spot on??

The air cells look good, I have been weighing every 4 days and the weight loss has been right on. I have had a few instances where the temp went up to 104 for a very short time, but other than that, it has been real steady.

So humidity at 60%...what about temp? Should I leave the plugs out? Should I just leave the eggs on the wire mesh or should I put them in something

 

[Arielle]

Hot hot hot! !!! Had to work today. Flew home so I could check thr newest chicks. 6 thriving eating and drinking and stinking cute!!!!

♡

The poor 7th (1st to hatch day 19) did up her little leg and foot. She got out of the foot wrapping. Her toes are just so curled. Tried to do up her legs and in place now but she can't sit or walk at all she just falls over???

Unhatched eggs - the one that took out a gd piece of its shell day 19 is still there. I can't see the beak anymore so I wonder if it turned inside??? Still breathing but not much else. Another is half zipped and that little chick is taking its time. And another pipped today. ..so 10 out of 11 so far. Today is #21.

So I am thinking to leave that egg alone right? Its been pipped since late Thursday nite.

Any other ideas for the chick with the leg and toes? I tried the links and ideas provided. Leg seems more stable but those toes are still curled...poor thing

I bet you flew home!!! lol

ALl things are optional that I will suggest.

Open up the shell along the zip line and see if baby is ok--and note condition of the inner clear membrane where the red vessels are. THey should be hard to see when it is time for chick to hatch. IF bright red and thick, then you will need to stop and be patient until those vessels are shrunk down. ( BLood goes into chick.)


Curled toes-- put on footies again and put in cup. Baby will need assistance eating and drinking. Might be just a day or two to get the curling straightened out to normal.

 

[Melissa F]

I usually lockdown by removing eggs from turner (or stop hand turning) on day 18 but one time I was doing an incubation in the classroom and I stopped on day 16 because day 18 was on Sunday I have no way to get into the building by myself.  Most times I fill up the wells as full as possible (i added the straws to the air holes to increase my well size and I don't worry about missing the tiny wells in the middle) and some times I just fill a glass full since I have sponges in there to wick the water up anyway.  I turn off the fan, and candle to try to remove the obivous quitters and to get the largest part of the air cell up (but I don't stress about it since chicks roll the eggs around during hatch anyway).  To combat that I may try cupcake wrappers for each egg this time.  I also have a couple of pieces of rubber shelf liner across the wire grate.  I think that's it.  Now I just watch and wait.  Once a day I will remove the dry hatchlings to the brooder and add water if necessary.  If I see a membrane drying out, I'll put some coconut oil on the membrane.

I'd guess that too - stryofoam type.  If you have a LLG and  hoverbator, I'd be interested in hearing how they are different.  Lucky you getting to borrow the incubators from hubby's work?  Where does he work (if you can tell and you can be generic).

CG

Hubby is a high school principal. They are doing some remodeling over the summer and have been packing up classrooms. He found the last two bators deep in a biology closet! They clearly haven't been used for years, but when I plugged them in everything heated up quickly and they've been holding a temp for over 24 hours now. I should be getting eggs tomorrow or Monday!

 

[Arielle]

My son's teacher did hatching this spring: 2 ducks and 5 chicks resulted.Well worth teaching the kids about hatching.

 

[quailtrail]

I bet you flew home!!! lol 

ALl things are optional that I will suggest.

Open up the shell along the zip line and see if baby is ok--and note condition of the  inner clear membrane where the red vessels are. THey should be hard to see when it is time for chick to hatch. IF bright red and thick, then you will need to stop and be patient until those vessels are shrunk down. ( BLood goes into chick.)


Curled toes-- put on footies again and put in cup. Baby will need assistance eating and drinking.  Might be just a day or two to get the curling straightened out to normal. 

TY!!!!!

 

[Arielle]

Good luck!!!

 

[cmom]

Oh boy- yesterday my husband found two more incubators at work (he found my first a few weeks ago and brought it home for me to borrow) this time along with an egg turner and two uninstalled fan kits! Now I'm going to have to go through this thread again and read the turner and fan posts that I skipped over the first time!
It turns out that the incubators he brought home at Hovobators- but I'm guessing they're pretty similar to Little Giants?

I added fans to my Hova-Bators. Here is one. I did find some AC fans so I could directly wire them. Make sure you put the air flow up and NOT down on the eggs. The fan is used to circulate the air. If the fans are DC then they will have to be wired to a dc converter like one that you could use from an old cordless phone.

This is an LG I wired with a DC fan and an old cordless phone converter. You do need spacers under the fan for room for it to blow to circulated the air. I have since re-converted the LG with LG fans. If you use a DC fan and it blows in the wrong direction you can reverse the wires. Good luck and have fun...

 

[Melissa F]

The fans my husband found along with the incubators are "official" incubator fans. Can I assume that as long as I installed them correctly they will be blowing up, not down?

 

[cmom]

The fans my husband found along with the incubators are "official" incubator fans. Can I assume that as long as I installed them correctly they will be blowing up, not down?

Correct. Sometimes they will have one black wire and a white wire on the fan and sometimes both wires on the fan are black. On the power cord one wire is black with a white stripe and the other is just black. If you have a fan with a black and a white wire the white wire goes with the black wire the white stripe on the power cord and the black wire on the fan to the black wire on the power cord. The one with the two black wires you will have to guess. You will know if the fan is blowing in the correct direction. If it isn't then just reverse the wires. You will also need wire nuts. The ones that come on the Hova-Bators are crimped on, so when you take them off you won't be able to reuse them. That was how mine were. Don't forget to put some spacers under the fan. I used some tubing and cut some spacers out of the tubing, also make sure the screws are long enough to go through the screw holes in the fan and the spacers. Hope this helps...