mintandmyrtlefarms
Songster
- Jul 1, 2020
- 119
- 151
- 111
Hello Friends! This is our third Coturnix quail hatch, and Iām so excited to share it with you! ā
This batch is the German Pastel Collection GCP, from Myshire Farm!
Today is lockdown day (day 15), and Iāve made some adjustments on my end in order to hopefully have a 50% or higher hatch rate this time! (*Last time we had 14 hatch
from 50ish, but my temp and humidity needed improvement.)
Candled and going into lockdown: x45
Specs: This time Iāve used the Spot Check thermometers, and Iāve used two incubators (since day 9), because I couldnāt find a way to level out the cold and hotspots in the one incubator.. I typically use 1 incubator for days 1-14, and move them into our second āHatcherā, but this time chose to only use the center areas of each, in order to try to keep all eggs in a safe temperature zone. Now, they are all in our Hatcher. This time Iāve tried to keep the humidity a bit higher than last time (which was a dry hatch 30-35%), working to keep the humidity at about 45% this time. During our second hatch we also set the humidity at 60% at lockdown, but will be setting it to 70-75% this time, to try to improve hatch rate. We had some half zips last time, so Iām hoping this will help!
Here is our layout in our Hatcher this go-round. Iāve made a wire basket to keep babies from falling below the racks, and have blocked off the area that tends to get too hot in the front. Iāve also avoided putting eggs in the back left area which is the cold spot in this machine.
What a learning process this has been! Please wish me luck on our third attempt! Iām trying so hard to learn as much as possible, and become better!
Here we go!
ā¤
~Aly
This batch is the German Pastel Collection GCP, from Myshire Farm!
Today is lockdown day (day 15), and Iāve made some adjustments on my end in order to hopefully have a 50% or higher hatch rate this time! (*Last time we had 14 hatch
from 50ish, but my temp and humidity needed improvement.)Candled and going into lockdown: x45
Specs: This time Iāve used the Spot Check thermometers, and Iāve used two incubators (since day 9), because I couldnāt find a way to level out the cold and hotspots in the one incubator.. I typically use 1 incubator for days 1-14, and move them into our second āHatcherā, but this time chose to only use the center areas of each, in order to try to keep all eggs in a safe temperature zone. Now, they are all in our Hatcher. This time Iāve tried to keep the humidity a bit higher than last time (which was a dry hatch 30-35%), working to keep the humidity at about 45% this time. During our second hatch we also set the humidity at 60% at lockdown, but will be setting it to 70-75% this time, to try to improve hatch rate. We had some half zips last time, so Iām hoping this will help!
Here is our layout in our Hatcher this go-round. Iāve made a wire basket to keep babies from falling below the racks, and have blocked off the area that tends to get too hot in the front. Iāve also avoided putting eggs in the back left area which is the cold spot in this machine.
What a learning process this has been! Please wish me luck on our third attempt! Iām trying so hard to learn as much as possible, and become better!
Here we go!
ā¤~Aly
This is already so much better of a turn out than my first to hatching attempts, so Iām over the moon! It really does take time to learn how an incubator behaves. I plan on putting a post together on my findings so far with the 56 eggs 
incubator machines. I thought they were a lost cause, but this is showing me that be successful, as long as you really learn about the hot and cold spots, and how to not block the airflow... (All of which I discovered through failure in my first and second go-rounds).
