My first 100% hatch! Dry incubation success story!

[Fowl Visions]

I think I understand your instructions and am setting everything up today. I don't plan on starting incubating until Wednesday or Thursday at the earliest.

I've had alot better hatches than my last one before. This was probably my worst.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

2txmedics, Does a "sticky chick" happen because of too much humidity the first 18 days or too much humidity the last 3 days?

 

[2txmedics]

still learning it all myself...I know mine were sticky, 2 of them...and they happened because I had too high temp...dried them out faster...did u read my post on dry incubating? This is what works for me with an LG...did alot of work to find this out.

Think there are a number of reasons...low humidity during the hatch with low temps...low humidity at hatch time, or even excessive high temps for short times.

what kind of bator do you have?

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Now I am a bit confused. I thought "sticky chicks" happened because of too high humidity. I just did not know when the "too high" brought it on. The first 18 days or the last 3.
I have a Genesis Hova bator. I don't always get sticky chicks though. Maybe 2 or 3 out of 15. I think that maybe when the humidity goes higher in the bator (when chicks start hatching the humidity goes way up) maybe thats when it happens? And then sometimes it is in just patches. A head or a back or belly but not the whole chick. Just gooey in spots.

 

[2txmedics]

what I do is type in a search:

hatching problems....and it gives me a general idea of what to fix....sorry cant be much help...mine is an LG, and there touchy...

 

[cracking up]

Rusty Woman - I'm just going to sneak in here and ask how you like your Genesis? I just ordered one and I think I'm going to transfer my eggs into it so I don't have to babysit my LG. Hope it holds temps better? I'm bating BCM's and the seller said they need low humidity. I'm a week into it and really nervous. blech!!
thanks, Lois

 

[cracking up]

sorry I got your name wrong - big difference between rusty and Rustys.

 

[call ducks]

This works for waterfowl

a breeder a round here no water at all for the frist 18 days. then he may add some not to shure a bout that.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Hi, sorry I am posting with another person too

I love my Genesis Hova bators.
I also have a Brinsea but it is the 100 dollar one and it just won't hold the humidity as well for some reason.
The Genesis holds it great but it took me awhile to realize that if I want the humidity higher that I had to use some water in all the troughs not just one.
It is the area of evaporation that creates more humidity not the amount of water in there.
I have a problem that I don't always finish reading instuctions and therefore have to learn the hard way sometimes.

The problem I had with my Genesis is that the temperature on each one of them ran too high. I did have to adjust them and nearly lost my sanity doing it.
So set yours up right away and monitor it for a few days. Be very sure that you want to adjust it before you start because it tends to do weird things like spike to 104 and then you adjust it and it goes down to 83. Ahhhhh. It took me a whole day and much stress to get the three I had adjusted. And in all honesty I ended up resetting it back to the manufactures setting.!!
However for some reason it did make the temps lower. I really am not sure what I did or how but now they run between 99.3 and 100.8
The first batches of hatches hatched out two days early. Now they hatch out about 1/2 a day early and seem stronger.
I love the hygrometers I bought from Pet Smart (Fluckers) in the reptile section. It is so easy and accurate.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Oh and cracking up check out the humidity levels for those BCM's I was told higher humidity? Hmm I have 6 that are ready to hatch in about 4 days.
I lowered my humidity from what I was hatching out previously but still had it around 40-50% these first 18 days. I am think it may still have been a little high. The air cells don't look quite small enough.
Maybe post a query on humidity on BCM's and get some better answers or at least a concensus.