Oh wise ones! First time incubating...setting eggs tomorrow!!

[Sonya]

I'm soooo excited! I got my 6 Welsummer eggs in the mail today and they are beautiful! I've been collecting my Pekin duck eggs too for the last few days as well. I'm really intent on getting the welsummer chicks hatched out and setting the duck eggs to experiment on how well they will do incubating with the chicken eggs. I'm even going to set a couple of duck eggs that have been refrigerated during this week just to see what the outcome is.

My incubator (an LG still air) has been set up for about 3-4 days now and is finally sitting between 99.6 and 100 degrees and between 30 and 33% humidity. I put a little more water on the sponge in the bator this afternoon to see if I can get the humidity up just a teeny weeny bit more, but I'm happy with where it is now too.

I'm going to set the eggs in a pulp egg carton so I can have the big end up and I need to decide whether to just elevate the carton from side to side in the bator or elevate the bator from side to side to minimize opening up the bator. I know there are some that will tell me not to incubate in the carton at all too. So many decisions to make in the next 24 hours....LOL.

I'm using a digital thermometer/hygrometer with the external probe that is inside the incubator and the display device sits outside...as well as the thermometer that came with the LG.


Any advice before I begin?? Any words of encouragement?

I can't wait to hopefully become one of the successful ones to hatch out some chicks and ducklings!!!

Sonya

 

[Southern Chickens]

I am on day 15 of my first hatch, in a long time. I have learned this so far. First of all, practice first. Do a trial run with your bator, before spending any big money on purebred eggs. I learned the hard way and could have saved myself $28.00.
Also, the probe themometer is good, I have ordered one and it will be here in time for the next hatch. They say if you get a water wiggler, to put the probe from the thermometer inside that thing. You can google it to see a picture of it. It is a toy that is filled with water, glitter and it slides through your hands when you are tring to hold onto it. I don't know how else to describe it. I got mine at the dollar tree store. It is supposed to give you a better reading, like what it would be inside the egg where the little ones are growing. I am having a hard time keeping up the humidity in mine right now, and have been spritzing them from a little water bottle.

I have a used Brower top hatch. I am really starting to get a hang of it now. I had a bad temp spike on day 5, I lost all 12 of my silkie eggs that I bought, at that point. The rest are mutt eggs from my yard birds. I only have 24 left out of 48, 50% were killed on day 5 and the rest are hanging on. I also had a temp drop on day 13, just to 89 degrees. I had to unplug it to install ball bearings that got lost when my sister shipped it to me.

If any hatch I will be shocked! I hope that you can learn from my mistakes, I sure did!

MOST OF ALL GOOD LUCK!!!

 

[HobokenChickenEmergency]

I'm no expert, but in all my reading here and at the library I know that duck eggs need more humidity. Maybe someone else with more experience knows differently, but that's my 2 cents anyway.