May 2020 Hatch-A-Long

[jolenesdad]

Anyone in here have geese? Whats the difference in temperament in general with Chinese and African?

 

[Vantic]

I know this one is a little old, but he is from my last hatch and is one of only 2 that survived. He's why I started calling my babies franken (Frankenstein) babies. He's 5 weeks old and ready to go outside finally.View attachment 2136288

I love Franken Babies

 

[AAcres]

So I candled my eggs Sunday afternoon and only had to pull 4 blood rings out of 73 eggs. I guess that means I have 69 babies still going. There were a few questionable but I will get rid of them on day 18 if I don't like how they look. My biggest problem is I am using 3 different incubators and let me tell you each one is different.
Incubator #1 Brand new Hova BAtor- has been great, just had to add a little water every couple of days.
Incubator #2 Farm Innovators still air- Have had some trouble in the last couple days keeping temp stable. Harder to get this one's humidity up.
Incubator #3 Little Giant digital - This one is my enemy!!! The temps swing something crazy ( I don't even touch it) it has terrible cold spots, even with the fan.
I'm going to see how these next hatches go % wise, but I think I will probably get rid of the Little Giant and get another Hova Bator. Or I might just build my own.
What has everyone else's experiences been with these incubators???

I have the little giant incubator and I agree, the temps are wacky. The temps are definitely not accurate on the digital screen so I have a digital thermometer sitting inside. I’ve caught the temps peak up to 106 and down to 97. Thankfully everyone is doing good. But I do have to check the incubator all the time.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

So I candled my eggs Sunday afternoon and only had to pull 4 blood rings out of 73 eggs. I guess that means I have 69 babies still going. There were a few questionable but I will get rid of them on day 18 if I don't like how they look. My biggest problem is I am using 3 different incubators and let me tell you each one is different.
Incubator #1 Brand new Hova BAtor- has been great, just had to add a little water every couple of days.
Incubator #2 Farm Innovators still air- Have had some trouble in the last couple days keeping temp stable. Harder to get this one's humidity up.
Incubator #3 Little Giant digital - This one is my enemy!!! The temps swing something crazy ( I don't even touch it) it has terrible cold spots, even with the fan.
I'm going to see how these next hatches go % wise, but I think I will probably get rid of the Little Giant and get another Hova Bator. Or I might just build my own.
What has everyone else's experiences been with these incubators???

I have a digital Hovobator with fan and turner. It’s does still have hot spots, but filing with eggs and the turner seems to even them out. I had a learning curve getting the right temperature, but have hatched several rounds of chicks and guineas!

 

[Trisseh]

3 duckie eggs still going strong, lots of bouncing in there on day 13. Haha. I’ve been sitting on my hands and not touching the silkie and sebright eggs since I just put them in Saturday night. Thankfully I’ve got some fluff/featherballs to distract me. Haha. My last hatched duckling is going on 3 weeks and she’s huge! Taking forever to feather in though. Last year’s birds went outside in a heated house and they all had lots of feathers by now. This girl is spoiled and living in my bedroom. Haha. The big girls are terrified of her every time I’ve shown her to them.

 

[kelseyk]

So I candled my eggs Sunday afternoon and only had to pull 4 blood rings out of 73 eggs. I guess that means I have 69 babies still going. There were a few questionable but I will get rid of them on day 18 if I don't like how they look. My biggest problem is I am using 3 different incubators and let me tell you each one is different.
Incubator #1 Brand new Hova BAtor- has been great, just had to add a little water every couple of days.
Incubator #2 Farm Innovators still air- Have had some trouble in the last couple days keeping temp stable. Harder to get this one's humidity up.
Incubator #3 Little Giant digital - This one is my enemy!!! The temps swing something crazy ( I don't even touch it) it has terrible cold spots, even with the fan.
I'm going to see how these next hatches go % wise, but I think I will probably get rid of the Little Giant and get another Hova Bator. Or I might just build my own.
What has everyone else's experiences been with these incubators???

Love my hovabators! I had a Farm Innovators with a fan and I have decided it was a lemon. Some people seem to have really good luck with them and others don't. My Farm Innovators was doing the same thing your Little Giant is doing with the temp swings. One time I checked and it was at 103° (I had to reset the temp to get it to go down) and had been there for a while and toward the end it would drop to 97° and I couldn't get the temp up.

 

[SharW75]

We are on Day 17 and just went on lockdown. We started with 29 eggs--14 from one seller, 7 from a second seller, and 8 of our own eggs. We ended up with 17 at lockdown--7 from the first seller, 2 from the second seller, and all 8 of ours are still going strong. I guess that's the difference in shipped vs. non-shipped eggs. Thankfully, all the shipped eggs' air cells looked great, and the one saddled one fixed itself, so I felt comfortable laying them all on their sides. Now, we just sit back and wait and hope. This is the worst part!

 

[FortCluck]

Love my hovabators! I had a Farm Innovators with a fan and I have decided it was a lemon. Some people seem to have really good luck with them and others don't. My Farm Innovators was doing the same thing your Little Giant is doing with the temp swings. One time I checked and it was at 103° (I had to reset the temp to get it to go down) and had been there for a while and toward the end it would drop to 97° and I couldn't get the temp up.

My farm innovator 4250s work great. I love them so far.

 

[2102Simm]

Its a terrible pic because none of these lil fluff balls wanted to cooperate but i have 10 healthy babies! I have 2 more in the incubator drying off with at least 5 more pips. Don't mind me I'm in my corner doing happy dances. So thankful I switched up the incubator top this hatch. I'll do a photo shoot later today to commemorate my most successful hatch ever.

 

[kelseyk]

My farm innovator 4250s work great. I love them so far.

You were one of the people that I knew had good luck with them. I know quite a few people have good luck with them. I wonder if they just had a batch or 2 during production that weren't quite right and ended up being lemons and I got one of those.