Oh Chicken People

[jhogan@incubation]

I am on my third try to hatch. I have been through about 60 eggs and have gotten to the peep stage. Anyways Little giant still air incubator, egg turner, termomator, humiity gage, hand sanitizer. I think all my failures are due to having to much water and humity. I am expecting eggs this week. My incubator has not gotten to tempature yet and has been on about 5 hours- I have it on full blast. My humitiy is way high. I am running a fan over the incubator because of all my still air failures and was told a fan could aid in the hatch. Do you think the fan is a good or bad idea? Going to find the humity level right now. I live in illinois and it is hot and humid. I have the incubator in the basement where their is the most consistant tempature. Most people think I am crazy but really can't give up on this hatch thing and I am sure most of you understand.
Julie

 

[LilyD]

I think they meant a fan inside the incubator you can get a computer fan for about 10 dollars and convert the still air to a forced air. I did that with mine and now my temp is steady at 100 degrees all the time unless I leave the light on in the room or the curtains open so the sun shines in.

 

[cmom]

I have an LG also with a fan inside it and my temp holds pretty steady. Also I have a turner. Originally when I put the eggs in the turner I fill the reservoirs in the bottom with water and put the turner in with the eggs. I don't turn on the turner for the first day the eggs are in the incubator while they are heating up. On day two I turn on the turner. I add water to the reservoirs on day 10 when I candle the eggs. On day 18 when I take out the turner and put the eggs in for hatching I add water in the reservoirs in the bottom and a sponge in a half pint canning jar with water. The sponge acts like a wick and helps to bring up the humidity for hatching. Works for me. I just hatched out some pheasant eggs.

 

[Orange Ribbon]

I took a fan out of an old computer and installed it in my LG. As bad as it is to maintain temps with the fan, I'd hate to see what it would be like without it. I have only put a few teaspoons of water in my incubator a couple of times and that was if it got down to 25 percent. It has been staying pretty stable at 30 to 36 percent. I decided to keep my humidity low due to hearing of others having chicks drown before they hatch. I will get it up to 65 percent at lockdown. As for your high humidity, you may have to put a dehumidifier in the room.

This is my first time incubating, so don't go by what I say as being from personal experience. It is other people's experiences that I am learning from. I wish you good luck with your eggs, and hope you will keep us updated as to how they do this time around.

As much as I know some people hate to hear this, unless you are a glutton for punishment my advice is to get a better brand incubator if you ever get the chance. If you don't have a steady temperature in the room you have the incubator in, it will fluctuate all over the place. A guy once told me he had a canoe that would turn over if you just turned your eyeballs in a certain direction. Well, the LG's will change temperature if you fart. And it isn't funny either!

 

[jhogan@incubation]

Thank you- I have found that for me hatching eggs has been like triing to quite smoking, 2 things I have been unable to do. I guess instead of sitting home today waiting for my shipment of eggs I going to look for a fan. As the ecomomy sucks, I am tring to do this without spending to much money. My husband had a teacher who did this with a homemade incubator and a light balb and it worked for her, guess i don't have that kind of mind. The one eggs I did get to almost live was so dame exciting, To hear that little peep. Poor little guy never made it out of the shell. I put my birds(parakeets) next to the incubator the day of hatch and the peeping of my birds woke the little guy up. Once I get involved in a hatch I lose my desire to eat eggs. I am a Catholic school teacher and would eventually like to do this at school but better get out all the kinks before i share this experience with 500+ school children. Last night I empted some of the water out, have not been down stairs to check out the incubator today.

 

[cmom]

I would put a small fan inside to circulate the air to help avoid hot and cold spots in the incubator. I made a homemade incubator and after I put the fan in the temperature was more even.

Here is a thread with many other BYC members homemade incubators.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/chicken-coop-incubator.html

Here is how I put my fan in I did put a small hole in the side behind the fan for an air intake. I also put a dimmer switch on the light to adjust it as I don't have a thermostat. Now I have a cabinet incubator but I still use the homemade incubator as a hatcher.

This was before I added the fan.

 

[ginbart]

I used a LG my first couple of times hatching and I hated it. I know there are people on here that theirs works great for them but mine didn't. First I would remove that fan because that makes it harded for the bator to work and get the temp right. How high are you putting you humidity the first 18 days? When I used my LG I only had it between 30 and 40. The last 3 days I tried to keep it around 50 to 60.

Without a fan inside the temp on top of the egg should be 101. Good luck Get your temp right before you put the eggs in it and remember it will go down a little when you open it to put the eggs in but don't touch the knob to change it, it will go back up by its self.

 

[LilMissPetie]

I also use the LG still air incubator, but w/o a fan, I leave the 2 red plugs out until lockdown, then I add water (get the humidity up to 55%) and put back in the plugs. If your room changes temps so will the incubator, which is about the only thing I hate about the LG. So if you can keep the room the same temp all the time you shouldn't have to much trouble with it. I am on my 3rd hatch(so far I have 5 outta 8 hatched with 2 more pipped) using the dry hatch method (not sure if your familiar with it, you can read all about it right here at BYC) I have never tried any other method and seem to get great results with it. My first time I got 7/8 the second 4/4. Good Luck

 

[LilyD]

Quote:
I love your idea of using a pint jar with the sponge in it for humidity. I think I will have to try that next time I hatch rather than having to keep filling the wells as they go down. great idea.

 

[LilyD]

Quote:
That is really interesting because I found the exact opposite. When mine was a still air I was getting temp fluctuation all the time anytime the temp went up in the room or anytime the lights went on and it didn't seem to stabilize at all. I added the fan and now I run at 100 degrees steady all the time with no variations unless I run a light in the same room for long periods of time because lights add heat. I think it's funny how there is so much variation between different LG incubators. It's really funny.