Name Change, My First Experience with Farm Innovators Bator

[A roo or two]

I can only assume it's the eggs doing it. I owned both vents and it's still around 40

40 sounds better to me. Of course some people say they have good results with higher humidity through the whole process.

 

[blucoondawg]

40 sounds better to me. Of course some people say they have good results with higher humidity through the whole process.

Yes yet some people claim best of luck with dry hatches down into the 20s, so many differing opinions and experiences on here

 

[A roo or two]

I know. I try to keep it as close to 30 as I can but it isn't always easy lol.
Yes yet some people claim best of luck with dry hatches down into the 20s, so many differing opinions and experiences on here

 

[blucoondawg]

Well I will have the results soon on my first actual hatch with this incubator, I took out the turner last night and set the eggs on the bottom of the incubator and added water for the first time, my humidity is in the upper 60s close to 70%, this morning I woke up to an external pip already! This little guy must be in a hurry to get out of his shell, 18 and a half days to my first pip, I fully expect it to take awhile to work it's way the rest of the way out. So far I am convinced the dry hatch is the way to go, even at humidity levels of 20 to 30 my air cells didn't shrink an exceptional amount, they just barely got to where they should be in my opinion, and a couple are still a little small, adding humidity I believe would have greatly hindered my chances.

 

[A roo or two]

How exciting! I like the dry hatch method. Keep us posted on the babies. I had some take 12 hours and some take 2 from start to finish.

 

[fuzziecreatures]

Got a Farm Innovator 4200 last week. Set it up and had it running for 3 days to set up temp. It held temp and humidity for 3 days, added eggs on Sunday 4/6. Since then I've had to add warm water every morning to get the humidity back up into the 20% range. Otherwise it drops below 20%. I have been adding about 1 tsp of water. I didn't want to add too much and have to take some out. I thought the eggs would release some humidity soon but still had to add water this am. I read somewhere to take out one of the plugs to help, but apparently my house is dry too. The baseline for my hygrometer for in the house was 68* and 47% humidity.

Any suggestions?

 

[blucoondawg]

Got a Farm Innovator 4200 last week. Set it up and had it running for 3 days to set up temp. It held temp and humidity for 3 days, added eggs on Sunday 4/6. Since then I've had to add warm water every morning to get the humidity back up into the 20% range. Otherwise it drops below 20%. I have been adding about 1 tsp of water. I didn't want to add too much and have to take some out. I thought the eggs would release some humidity soon but still had to add water this am. I read somewhere to take out one of the plugs to help, but apparently my house is dry too. The baseline for my hygrometer for in the house was 68* and 47% humidity.

Any suggestions?

Removing the plugs would lower your humidity unless you had very high humidity in your house, if you are having trouble maintaining it then you would want to leave in a plug or 2 but you will have to remove them eventually to ensure the chicks have air. When I added my eggs my humidity skyrocketed, I even opened the lid a couple times to knock it down to the 35ish range, it took a few days to get into the 20s and that is where it seemed to want to stay, upper 20s to mid low 30s, I didn't add water until lockdown and then it went up to around 70. I have 4 pips right now as we speak on day 19 almost to the minute. my thermometer read between 98 and 100 through almost the entire hatch but it must have ran a little warm for them to be wanting to hatch on day 19. How many eggs did you set? My first attempt I only set half the capacity and had trouble maintaining humidity but with this full batch it held itself fine with the moisture from the eggs.

 

[blucoondawg]

So far I have 2 hatched at day 19, 4 more pips that I can see, one of the hatched ones was from a green egg that I didn't count before as I couldn't see the pip the way it layed or possibly it pipped and hatched quickly and I didn't see the pip in the last couple hours, the first one that had pipped this morning already and has zipped about a half an inch still has not hatched, hopefully it hasn't died, now with the 2 wet chicks the humidity is way up, the glass is even fogged up from the humidity, 2 down 30 some more to go, hopefully I will have chicks coming out my ears! One from a brown egg one from a green egg, I have a NH rooster, a BR rooster, and a Sicilian Buttercup Rooster, be interesting to see how the chicks turn out.

 

[blucoondawg]

up to 9 chicks so far on day 20, they seem to be taking a long time to dry as the humidity is so high in the incubator

 

[A roo or two]

yep, it does take them awhile to dry. Just don't open your bator, even with no external pips. I read that you can open the bator if there are no external pips and that affected several in my hatch this time. They did shrink wrap, even though they had never pipped.