Mid march hatch a long

[meshellrose]

day 12 for me. LG bator has been holding steady temps and have 9 babies growing great!

 

[vanalpaca]

Candled some of the paler eggs tonight and they all look to be developing just fine. After a bad hatch last time I got a hygrometer (lesson learned, don't hatch without one!) from wally world and I couldn't believe it, it was dead on with the salt-in-the-bag calibration! I will be candling the rest of mine tomorrow, as well as setting 20 more that are SUPPOSED to arrive via USPS tomorrow morning. They may have to wait until Wednesday morning depending on how the air cells look. Happy Hatching all!

how do you calibrate thermometers and humidity gauges

 

[vanalpaca]

After reading and watching my gauges, I am running humidity at 45 to 50%, it varies by daytime/nighttime.

The temps all appear to be running the same as the house temperature is only varying 4-5 degrees from daytime/nighttime.

I have temp gauges at the back and front of the cabinet bator and the front ones right up against the door and under the lights read lower than the back ones that are under the fan! variance is 99 to 102 degrees but every thermometer is a 'different' one.

I do have one that has a min max reading that resets every 24 hours. It is reading 98 to 100 and is right on the plexiglass front door inside of course.

I figure this is the best I can do and will let it run. I only open the door right now maybe once a day to drop the humidity back down to 45. It seems to increase to 50% if let run continuously. There is no water tray in there at all right now.

come time to add humidity for hatching, I will put the cup in and add water through the water door. I remember that humidity is a factor of surface area, so the larger wet surface area maintained the higher the humidity can be raised.

I really do have a question about just turning off the turners and letting the chicks hatch in them or do I HAVE to take out the eggs, put in the screened bottom shelf and place the eggs back in on their sides. This will change the position that each egg was in as I'm sure I can't remember to get them all in the exact space they were in before plus will lower them about 1/2 an inch as the shelf bottom is lower than the turners were. I want the best possible outcome. What do you vote that I do?

Lay them Flat on the shelf
Leave them in the turners?

THANKS!

 

[lynn1961]

take them out of the turner and lay them on the wire

 

[vanalpaca]

I found pete55's incubation information on the geese thread and now thoroughly understand WHY you take them out and lay them on their side!!

I will be trying to see/monitor when the air sac 'dips down' and change out the turners to the wire shelves at that time, probably around day 18.

I will also be trying to candle the Wellie eggs in the dark closet with the LED light I have that seemed to work pretty well last year for candling. I will MARK the air sac if I can see it each time I candle.

Apparently my humidity levels will be good at th 45-50% range.

Since I am aiming for weight loss of 14-17% over 3 weeks, that's about 5% weight loss per week, I will be weighing the eggs on 7, 13, and 18th days to see if they are losing moisture fast enough.

They all weighed 1.8 to 2.0 ounces. So it's time for math.

I was hoping not to 'mess with' the eggs and just let the turners run, set eggs on shelves, increase humidity and lockdown. But I really would like to improve my hatch rates.

So I guess knowing what is going on inside the eggs on those days will be helpful to my learning curve.

Hope you all are having a good incubation and nearing hatch!!
Cheers, Bonnie

 

[DraigAthar]

Can you link me to that thread?

I found pete55's incubation information on the geese thread and now thoroughly understand WHY you take them out and lay them on their side!!

 

[vanalpaca]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/491013/goose-incubation-hatching-guide-completed

 

[WinklerFarms]

how do you calibrate thermometers and humidity gauges

I use 1/2 cup salt and 1/4 cup water in a cup, place the cup with the salt/water in a large ziploc bag and put the hygrometer beside it, seal it up an leave for 12 hours. After 12 hours it should read 75%. If it doesn't then you can either adjust the hygrometer if you can or remember to add or subtract to the reading to get the correct RH. So if it reads 70% then you know you always have to add 5% to get the real RH. Conversely if it reads 80% then you need to subtract 5 to get the real RH.

 

[WinklerFarms]

Just got done candling all my eggs and out of the 20 set all 20 are looking great. I could see the embryos moving in all 20 eggs! Now if only my other eggs would get here so I could get them set....they SHOULD have been here today but I guess they will be here tomorrow.

 

[davony's chicks]

Well I am late but I set my eggs on March 4th so I am looking at a late March hatch. I set 12 bantam cochin eggs. These are all from my hens but a some may be a little too old to hatch ( they were a week before I set them).

I just ordered 2 dozen Mille Fleur, buff and mottled eggs. And then I ordere 6 buff barred. All bantam cochins.

Its nice to see you all are progressing nicely. I hope at least 6 my eggs are good and who knows about the ones I ordered. I will update later.

Good luck all!