Now I'm confused.....!!???

[yinepu]

DO NOT MIST! misting is just for hatching days, and then you can just put a sponge in the incubator!

oh good grief

YES you can mist eggs during hatch if you need to get the humidity up fast

I am NOT talking about soaking the eggs.

and if you are going to use a sponge it needs to either be brand new and never used for anything else before or have been sanitized before placing in the incubator so as to not harbor bacteria

 

[Bill 101]

Hey, yinepu What is "oh good grief" is it the same as "bang head on wall" There are times I post something & then delete it because I feel that it might be a little tough for that person to handle, but I'm thinking "What planet is this person on"
I try to be nice, but its really hard sometimes. Sometimes it just slips out but I'm getting to old to worry about it to much

 

[yinepu]

Hey, yinepu What is "oh good grief" is it the same as "bang head on wall" There are times I post something & then delete it because I feel that it might be a little tough for that person to handle, but I'm thinking "What planet is this person on"
I try to be nice, but its really hard sometimes. Sometimes it just slips out but I'm getting to old to worry about it to much

pretty much.. my smilies weren't working at the time (it's a Charlie Brown reference.. yeah.. I'm showing my age)


Even commercial hatchers mist the eggs during hatch.. Lol

 

[NestingHillsSC]

Day 10 candled. Had to take out 5 infertile eggs. Have 15 now. From what I can see they look good. Some are just very hard to see. Some are just so dark in there I really can't see anything. Plus of course there brown eggs. So now I'm just leaving them and going for it. Enough of the candling. LOL. Hope none blowup.

 

[NestingHillsSC]

Hey Bill, will that inner spur grow back that I cut off??

And the more you pull the outer shell off the smaller the spur will become?? I have had over the years 5-6 roosters. But none ever had much of spurs on them. When I bought this one it already had those big spurs. I didn't realize the inner spur was so long. And how often do you do it to keep there spurs smaller?

Always learning something new.

 

[Bill 101]

OK, Day 10 (seems like it been longer than that) Did you check the air cell size? You can be pretty much assured that what you have left are fertile. If everything is right there should be no problem "going the distance". I'm not running the incubator, meaning I haven't seen what you've seen. I figure you know what your looking at. Just to make sure I'd suggest you candle at day 18. That would be the best time to see if anything has died. Even if you can't really see much, anything that may have died would show lighter areas within the egg, If everything is OK, there would be a solid mass that you can't see through except where the air cell is & how big it is. At day 18 the air cell should be somewhere between 1/4 to 1/3 the mass of the egg. I'm sure you've seen the diagrams of what it should look like

I think that inner spur will grow back, but I've never cut one off, so I not positive. I've had roosters like you explained. some grow long spurs that need trimming often & others don't . It seem to depend on the individual bird. Even birds of the same breed & from the same hatch can be different

 

[NestingHillsSC]

I looked at a lot of pics of eggs. Seems the air cell is growing. Bigger than before. Do I really know what I'm looking for??

Not really sure. First time you know. But I guess I will find out. HAHAA. I figure between now and then if one id bad I will get a bad smell. LOL. So I will keep my nose in smell mode.

The ones I can actually see into I can see 2 dots. So must be good. LOL.

As for the rooster. He's about business as usual this morning. So I guess I didn't kill him. LOL. Just started to rain. Will go and check on him in a few though.

 

[Bill 101]

YINEPU --- How does a commercial hatchery determine to mist the eggs. With the big incubators they use I'd think everything would be automatic. I had an incubator I bought from an e;mu breeder (after he went out of business). The thing was great. It had Micro processors that controlled both the heat & humidity. Course the heat was super accurate, but I only ran the humidity control once, just to see how it worked. It was a humidifier just like one would run in a room. I really liked that incubator, but when the temperature control when out & I found out a new one was $500, I figured I didn't need it as bad as I thought

I had big dreams back when I bought it. The thing would incubate 480 eggs It also had a sererate hatcher. Both are sitting in a room in my shop, & I don't have any plans on using it.

 

[yinepu]

I looked at a lot of pics of eggs. Seems the air cell is growing. Bigger than before. Do I really know what I'm looking for??

Not really sure. First time you know. But I guess I will find out. HAHAA. I figure between now and then if one id bad I will get a bad smell. LOL. So I will keep my nose in smell mode.

The ones I can actually see into I can see 2 dots. So must be good. LOL.

As for the rooster. He's about business as usual this morning. So I guess I didn't kill him. LOL. Just started to rain. Will go and check on him in a few though.

When you candle them be on the lookout for anything that sloshes around when you rotate the egg... if it's soupy inside and looks like something you would find in a septic tank.. it's a bad egg.. lol

A growing chick by day 18 should look like a big dark solid blob...

YINEPU --- How does a commercial hatchery determine to mist the eggs. With the big incubators they use I'd think everything would be automatic. I had an incubator I bought from an e;mu breeder (after he went out of business). The thing was great. It had Micro processors that controlled both the heat & humidity. Course the heat was super accurate, but I only ran the humidity control once, just to see how it worked. It was a humidifier just like one would run in a room. I really liked that incubator, but when the temperature control when out & I found out a new one was $500, I figured I didn't need it as bad as I thought

I had big dreams back when I bought it. The thing would incubate 480 eggs It also had a sererate hatcher. Both are sitting in a room in my shop, & I don't have any plans on using it.

They are all automated. The incubators and hatchers are in different rooms. The eggs are set in trays which are already loaded onto racks. So they have to move racks of eggs from point A to point B.. then change the eggs from the turner trays to the flat tray type hatcher trays (also on racks). They aren't gentle about it either.. so they have a lot of losses when the boys manually flip the eggs from one tray into the other (the trays are made so they can set the incubator rack down.. cover it with the hatcher rack then with one guy on one end and the other guy on the opposite end they flip the racks together and over. then lift off the incubator tray. They guys usually have a couple of 5 gallon buckets at their feet and will sometimes pick out exploded eggs (they are supposed to anyway.. lol) and drop them into the buckets.

Once in the hatcher trays they go back into a rack.. when the rack is full of trays it gets moved into a hatcher. Once the hatcher is full of racks the door is closed and it's "set" (proper humidity and temp for hatching). As the humidity drops below the required amount (remember they are in climate controlled rooms.. so they can set in their tried and true requirements) the misters will come on misting the inside of the hatcher as well as the eggs.

I pulled these off of Metzer farm's site since i never took pics of the ones I worked in. Ours were a little different.. but it's all the same basic idea. the fans do not blow directly onto the eggs and they use misters to control humidity

Incubator racks full of eggs



a single hatcher rack showing trays



hatcher racks in the hatcher... in this one they have ducklings hatched.. lots of yellow dust on everything!


Commercial hatcheries always use separate incubators and hatchers.. since they have to control the humidity the easiest way during incubation AND hatch is by the use of misters.

From Welp hatchery: Their incubators are also different from Metzer's... but again it's all the same idea.







At the hatchery where I worked the fans were located on the back wall at the top. . Lol.. they were a pain to clean because it was almost impossible to get to the backs of the fan blades.

 

[Bill 101]

WOW Really interesting. But ya know,for me, it just brings up a lot of questions. I spent my whole career in the mechanical field most of it in food processing, but part of it in equipment/parts manufacturing.
Do they candle the eggs? That's got be kinda boring, especially when you have 10,000 eggs to go through. or do they just "chance it"
Is there any kind of filters on the fans or Dust collectors in the room. It doesn't appear so with all that yellow dust In the picture
Is the whole idea based on volume - dump those that haven't hatched yet?
How do they clean things. It seems it would be pretty much a mess after a hatch. I can see that the incubators would stay pretty clean, but still have to be cleaned. Do they use pressure washers/vacuums or is it all done by hand?