Hi, Everyone! I know this thread is old, but I've read the whole thing (!) and it's packed with so much awesomeness...thank you to anyone who posted, especially the people answering questions and sharing their experiences!
My small, in town, backyard flock (including a broody with teenage chicks - I gave her fertile eggs) was all slaughtered in the Fall.
Now that it's Spring I'd like to start building a flock.
I hatched out 2 chicks recently (first try). That's out of 14 eggs but many were early quitters. Two died in their shell at the end (actually, I was doing eggtopsies on day 25 and surprised a chick so I stuck it and another one that was developed back in, but they didn't make it.) that whole hatch was dubious from the beginning because my sister collected the eggs over time, but let her broody sit on some for a few days -they didn't know how many- before handing them all to my mom who put them on her front seat with the seat warmer on and drove them from Lubbock to the Waco area (~6h) and then tried to keep them warm overnight and then drove them 2.5 hours to Dallas to give them to me. I love them both, but they didn't know what they were doing and I could have advised them had this not been a surprise for me.
She brought my sister's incubator and I put them in asap without having time for stabilizing b/c they were already started. Sigh. I think I did ok with what I was handed. LOL
That was BEFORE I read this thread and bought the IncuTherm Plus and a couple aquarium thermometers to track LG better. Now I know that the digital LG hygrometer is off and H% really was much higher than it registered. I just kept adding warm water to last batch to soak the multiple sponges and just let it overflow out the bottom. The lid was always full of condensation, typically each window was 25% clouded, but sometimes up to 75% b/c the LG digital display still said I was only getting it up to 60%. I'm kinda surprised any chicks lived!
Try #2: I bought some shipped eggs (yes, I know my chances are dismal, but I'm going to work within that assumption and do the best with what I've got
! ) I want to see how I do (and maybe even add a couple more layers to this flock).
The weather here is so gorgeous right now (80s/60s) that DH insists we leave the windows and doors open and don't run any a/c or heat. I love it *for me*...cold and night and maybe a bit warm in the heat of the day, but the fresh air is awesome. However, it has made keeping the incubator consistent very hard. Just a
still air LGthat is borrowed so I'm not going to make modifications. Wish me luck!
The air cells didn't look too damaged from shipment...
I let them sit a few hours and then candled. I didn't see any rolling air which is great, but I also didn't see an air pocket in all of them (of course I'm just using my phone flashlight to candle and there are limitations!). Fingers crossed!
I went ahead and loaded them into the LG that had been stable for days. I have them in a cutdown carton big side up and have been spinning the whole carton a few times a day and moving it around the floor of the incubator since the still air has cooler spots, but I haven't removed them from the carton. I *plan* to wait to lay them down and roll/rotate for at least 3 days, maybe 5...maybe 7...thoughts? Or maybe I should leave them in the carton the whole hatch???
