My thoughts on the egg carton hatch method.

[rebelcowboysnb]

Quote:
It wouldn't really mater if my gauges were off.

I have no water in the incubator an the vents are fully open when the hatching tray is empty. That's as low as I can go with the humidity. No matter what my gauges read.

3 days a week I have eggs in the hatching tray. I turn on my humidistat an it brings the humidity to 70% +- 5%.(on my gauge) That's not a number I pulled out of the air. At 60% my hatch rate falls drastically. At 80% my hatch rate falls drastically. 4 years full time experience tells me that's where I have to be to get good hatches. The only way to drop my humidity more would be to stop hatching so many chicks.

Maybe when my production goes up somewhere past the 100+ chicks a month I'm at now I may add a positive pressure ventilation system to counter act the extra moisture of the added eggs. But right now my system is working with out drowning being an issue. It wouldn't make any sense to start over at square one to try to make the egg carton method work for me. If to much moisture was the issue they would be drowning on there side. Its the act of standing the on end that forces the moisture to stay on the chicks.

I could just as easy say that you must have to little moisture if your getting better hatches on end. Ya know holding what little moisture you have left on the chicks. But I'm sure that would be over simplifying the issue as well.

 

[Superman11383]

I got it, you must not have been holding your mouth right when you put the eggs in the cartons. That has to be it Because it works good for me.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I always seem to have my tongue in the wrong corner of my mouth when I'm playing video games to. Go figure...

 

[Ryu]

I had a different problem with the egg carton method. I had a great hatch, but three chicks had 'sprung' hips.

Not spraddle legs, but on leg actually twisted at the hip joint. They had hatched then napped in the empty holes with a leg hanging over the side. I thought it was cute until we moved them to the hatcher.

Despite aggressive spraddle leg treatment, I put two down at 10 days. The third made a full recovery.

We hatched the eggs on the wire a week later and had no leg problems this time. I liked how they hatched out of the cartons, but don't want to lose any more chicks that way. We are back to hatching on the floor.

 

[BellLisamo]

Quote:
Thanks for the help! Why do bad air cells happen? and how can you tell?

 

[runamuckchickenfarm]

I use the egg carton method, but I put the carton at a 30 to 40 degree angle and only use one side (the bottom side on the angle).

If I have more eggs, I use more cartons. This works really well and still keeps the eggs from being disturbed by hatchlings.

I also MARK the air sacs with side and contour before I put them in the egg cartons.

I used to put paper towels under the eggs to keep them from moving, but the egg carton is easier to clean up.

 

[EweSheep]

I've used egg cartons and had pretty good luck with them! No drownings either!

 

[Crunchie]

Quote:
Bad air cells can happen during shipping, when the eggs get shaken up. It can break the air cells. Not good, they don't hatch when the air cells get totally broken...it means you pretty much have just a scrambled egg in there.

Quote:
Now THAT makes a lot of sense!!

Good thinkin'. I'm definitely going to do that with this next hatch. In my cartons.

rebelcowboy, you have obviously found what works for you...everyone has their own "recipe" for hatching!!

 

[sara]

rebelcowboysnb ~ I have no desire to argue with you. Obvioulsy what you do works for you. When you said you had chicks drown that made me think humidity issue. If you don't want people to comment on what you post, maybe don't post it.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

I had no intention of arguing but the tone of all your posts is to do what I won't but even tho my way works (good results on there side an bad on end) because it differs from your results I must be doing something wrong or don't know what I'm doing. So at some point everyone starts defending there selves.