Little Giant Incubator Tricks

[SunnySkies]

I was sure we would come home from Children's and find at least one chick in the hatcher, but we didn't. I'll give the Silkie eggs more time. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

 

[SunnySkies]

Well, my Silkie hatch rate was dismal. Out of 5 that went to lockdown, 1 hatched.

I have 14 SFH. One I am sure was a dud before we ever got to lockdown. 3 hatched so far.

All of our barnyard mixes hatched. Shipping is sure hard on eggs.

I busted my 5 year old opening the hatcher this morning to grab yesterday's 3. I'm wondering if he has done that in the past now.

 

[Arielle]

Well, my Silkie hatch rate was dismal. Out of 5 that went to lockdown, 1 hatched.

I have 14 SFH. One I am sure was a dud before we ever got to lockdown. 3 hatched so far.

All of our barnyard mixes hatched. Shipping is sure hard on eggs.

I busted my 5 year old opening the hatcher this morning to grab yesterday's 3. I'm wondering if he has done that in the past now.

I pop in to pull out chicks and I know of a very experienced hatcher that also pulls out chicks. Necessary with close staggared hatches.

Shipping is hard on the eggs; that is probably the reason, not your son. Glad you got the one chick.

 

[cmom]

As long as you keep your humidity high enough and open the lid of the incubator/hatcher rather quickly and grab the chicks out, I don't think you should have any problems. I pull my chicks out all of the time. I keep my humidity around 75% at lockdown and when I close the lid it recovers pretty quickly. Many times I just take a viewing glass out of my LG's and grab the chicks. Can't do that with the Hova-Bators so I try to be as quick as I can. They are usually still wet when I take the chicks out and put them in a brooder box until they are dry then they go into the brooder cabinet. I have been doing this for years and have had very few shrink wrap. When I kept my humidity around 65% I had more problems. Now there are times when it goes up to near 80% at lockdown but I do not worry anymore and have great hatches.

I think shipped eggs are more of a risk. I had a dozen Heritage RIR eggs that were shipped and only 4 hatched. Usually on hatches from my own stock I get near 100% hatches so I think shipped eggs are more of a gamble. No matter how well they are packed they still get tumbled around during shipping. Good luck with the rest of your hatch.

 

[SunnySkies]

The humidity dropped to 30%. He hadn't put the lid back on right. I'm watching it to see if it recovers. We talked about not messing with the incubators. Again. He has ADHD, so it takes a few talks to get him to understand sometimes. Le sigh.

 

[Arielle]

The humidity dropped to 30%. He hadn't put the lid back on right. I'm watching it to see if it recovers. We talked about not messing with the incubators. Again. He has ADHD, so it takes a few talks to get him to understand sometimes. Le sigh.

Even I have not set it on properly--took me a few times finding it ajar to remember to seat it well EVERY time.

 

[SunnySkies]

I thi k we are done. I picked up all the eggs and listened and didn't hear anything in any of the remaining eggs when I took chicks out. I'm leaving them as is for now, just to make sure, but I'm not holding my breath. 3 out of 14 and 1 out of 12 and 5 out of the viable 5 of a dozen. It's fun,but I feel bad for the ones I know were viable a few days ago. Wonder what went wrong. I know everyone says its the incubator, but I think it did OK, as I had only a couple mild spikes in temperature and humidity held beautifully.

Kids and I had another talk about opening the incubator and to please not to, no matter what is going one in there.

I am planning to try again and have eggs shipping Monday from just a couple states over. Those ones are meant for a friend. And I'd like to get some more SFH eggs, because I'm not lucky enough to have my trio be two hens and a rooster!

 

[cmom]

The humidity dropped to 30%. He hadn't put the lid back on right. I'm watching it to see if it recovers. We talked about not messing with the incubators. Again. He has ADHD, so it takes a few talks to get him to understand sometimes. Le sigh.

You can tape the lid on and if you need to get into the incubator take out the viewing windows to reach in. R U in lockdown? Welcome to the club!!! I have had my humidity drop way down too because I didn't put the lid on right. As soon as I noticed it I fixed it and got the humidity back up and still had a good hatch.

 

[SunnySkies]

We went to lockdown 3.5 days ago. One hatched within hours, two in the last 24.

not a fab photo, but you get the idea. I put them back in as my older chicks were picking on them and I need to devise a better way for them to all share the EcoGlow.

 

[Avonshire]

Is there not someone close to you that you can get the eggs from? Shipped eggs are so hit and miss. My last hatch (8 of 9 that I helped retrieve from their nests) were squirming in their eggs at lockdown so I am not sure what happened to the one. I like the idea of taping it closed though!

My good hatch I fixed a bottle cap to the temp adjuster, changed where I housed the bator so that there was less temp/air flow/humidity changes and did not use the egg turner so that lockdown went better. My hatches have been 1 of 7, 10 of 23, and 8 of 9. Of course the first two were large fowl and the last was bantam so maybe that has something to do with it? I also picked a thermometer and stuck with it rather than having 3 different therms and trying to figure out which to believe!!!