Operation Dry Hatch

[mohillbilly]

Mohillbilly,

I have a question for you as you have built incubators for so long and have good experience hatching. I read this whole thread and the dry incubation article here on BYC.

I have a custom incubator with hatching drawer, 3 shelves and above that are 2 100 watt light bulbs in front 2 fans in back and at the back between the fans is the thermostat. There is a shelf at the bottom of the fans and it holds the water cup for humidity. Has it's own access door above it for adding water, a small hole in back for the turner cords to go out and that is covered with plexiglass but not screwed down tight, so gets a wee bit of air into the system there. Its at customincubators.com I believe.

So I have the bottom 2 shelves with egg turners running and put about 20 eggs centered on each shelf. Temps appear correct between all the thermometers, going for 101.5 for LF eggs?

After running it all day with the eggs in, finally got a humidity gauge in it and it measured 45%.

House temps run 62 at night up to 66 in the daytime and the bator is in an interior very small room corner with pass through open doorways.

Eggs were on turners for the past 10 days or so, been collecting them for 3 weeks at least until my bator got fixed and running. So maybe some of them are already are 'old'.

I will try running the bator for the first 18 days at 45% humidity, turning off the turners when they are level, stuffing any 'holes' along the sides with papertoweling so no one falls through to a different shelf.

I will increase humidity to 65%?? What would you advise? This is only about a 2 feet high bator by 17x17 or so, just enough to accomodate the turners deep and wide.

I will leave the temps alone and let them run as shown. Front to back and up to down, temps are at the back wall under the fans and the front viewing door and mostly Accurite thermo's, the only one showing 'high' is the fish tank gauge at 103, the one suctioned to the door is 99 and the back one reading at the bottom is 101.5. Since eggs are centered in the unit away from fans and light, I am hoping the eggs are at the right temp.

I will repost here my hatch rate for it's actually 39 eggs. They were all 1.9 to 2.0 ounce eggs.

Last year in this bator, with the unit outside in the garage in JUNE, I ran higher humidity I am thinking, temps were good, had 36 rockers on day 18 and 10 hatched. I'm thinking they were big butted 'wet' chicks mostly.

Is it ok to just turn off the turners and let them hatch there. I think taking them out and shifting them sideways on racks on day 18 helped mess up last year's hatch. This is a test hatch of the bator since a Silky Roo and 3 Welsummer Roos are all in with the Welsummer hens. He leaves TODAY to a 4-H home and in 3 weeks I will be able to reset the bator with pure Wellie eggs.

ALL ADVICE WELCOME!

Bonnie in NW Ohio

no you need to lay them down....your bad hatch rate is from to much fluctuation in your temps from having light bulbs as your heat source.

 

[wholewheatchicken]

Will light bulbs affect hatching? I have a very small homemade incubator and there are two 40 watt light bulbs. My temps stay between 99 and 99.5. My first hatch three of them attempted to hatch out on day 21, with one live chick. I messed this one up by opening up the bator because I didn't have the right flooring in and the chick couldn't get on its feet and after four hours I opened the lid to get the chick out and I'm pretty sure that's what killed the other two pippers. I don't really understan what happened to the live ones that didn't pip out. They were not shrink wrapped, but had absorbed the egg sac and died. My humidity was higher with the first batch than the second so maybe these guys just weren't wet enough.
The second batch I had rockers right on time on day 21. They were just too dry to go anywhere and died.
I feel like my temps must be right because of them attempting to hatch on the correct day, but I had asked my husband if the light bulbs could be drying them out. AGAIN, I had very low humidity and thought this was my problem, but I'm asking because of the last post and your answer about the light bulbs. My temps were stable throughout both hatchings.
Side note, I bought a scale today so am very excited to weigh the eggs in and get them into the bator. I was thinking to start off the humidity around 45% so as they give off moisture it will rise some on its own, or should I start closer to 50%?
Thank you for your help. Here's to believing three times might do the trick on getting chicks.
Kim

 

[mohillbilly]

yes light bulbs will effect the humidity just from the placement....I have found having a heating element located at the bottom of the incubator makes controlling the temp and humidity easier.

 

[wholewheatchicken]

I have been subscribed on the incubator idea thread and saw tonight you guys have spent quite a bit of time talking about this very issue. I got myself caught up on reading and it is very interesting. I could post there, but since I've got you to myself here I'll go ahead and ask. Does the light bulb dry the air out faster? Can you still have the right humidity in the air if you keep it boosted with moisture or is the light bulb just a moisture killer? I guess the short of it is, if you keep the humidity up in the range you want, can you still have a successful hatch if you are using light bulbs?
Did see your other recommendations and am going to ask about implementing the heating element. I'm pretty sure I have an old hair dryer around here and my husband is very handy. As long as I can find out the direction I want him to go in, he can accomplish it. I just am unsure if I should continue and try another hatch with the light bulbs in the incubator. If I'm unsuccessful again, I think he is going to hide the bators and buy one. That is what he was trying to get me to do today. He doesn't like to see me upset when the chicks are dead. It's okay though. I take it hard for the day and then pick myself up and start trying to figure it out again and I think he has a really good idea, just might need a little tweaking and a lot more moisture on my part!!!!!
Thanks,
Kim

 

[mohillbilly]

I have been subscribed on the incubator idea thread and saw tonight you guys have spent quite a bit of time talking about this very issue. I got myself caught up on reading and it is very interesting. I could post there, but since I've got you to myself here I'll go ahead and ask. Does the light bulb dry the air out faster? Can you still have the right humidity in the air if you keep it boosted with moisture or is the light bulb just a moisture killer? I guess the short of it is, if you keep the humidity up in the range you want, can you still have a successful hatch if you are using light bulbs?
Did see your other recommendations and am going to ask about implementing the heating element. I'm pretty sure I have an old hair dryer around here and my husband is very handy. As long as I can find out the direction I want him to go in, he can accomplish it. I just am unsure if I should continue and try another hatch with the light bulbs in the incubator. If I'm unsuccessful again, I think he is going to hide the bators and buy one. That is what he was trying to get me to do today. He doesn't like to see me upset when the chicks are dead. It's okay though. I take it hard for the day and then pick myself up and start trying to figure it out again and I think he has a really good idea, just might need a little tweaking and a lot more moisture on my part!!!!!
Thanks,
Kim

if you are going to remove the light bulbs I suggest you order a heating element from cutler supply.

 

[wholewheatchicken]

Thank you for the referral. I will check them out.

 

[ChickensInMyYard]

Wow everybody! Lot's of great information! I didn't expect so much interest when I started this thread. Tomorrow is my second hatch with this method so I have my fingers crossed. Everything looks good but I'm a wreck!

I always get so hyped up at hatch time!!!!!!!!! I feel like I'm pacing the floor in a maternity ward....

I'm sure I be up all night with my ear against the incubator.

I'll keep you posted!

 

[ChickensInMyYard]

if you are going to remove the light bulbs I suggest you order a heating element from cutler supply.

 

[wholewheatchicken]

Wow everybody! Lot's of great information! I didn't expect so much interest when I started this thread. Tomorrow is my second hatch with this method so I have my fingers crossed. Everything looks good but I'm a wreck!

I always get so hyped up at hatch time!!!!!!!!! I feel like I'm pacing the floor in a maternity ward....

I'm sure I be up all night with my ear against the incubator.

I'll keep you posted!

Do you have a hatching thread going on? I would love to stay updated on how it is going. I put 12 RIR and 4 silkie eggs in the bator tonight at 6:00 p.m. EST and am so hoping for a better result at a higher humidity. What humidity did you keep days 1- 18 and 18 - 21?
Good luck.....sending chickie dust your way.

 

[vanalpaca]

My humidity is stable with the light bulbs and the thermostat clicks on and off at 1 degree or so. It is the same wafer thermostat that is sold by GFQ with a switch that engages when the wafers swell with heat and turns the bulbs on and off. It isn't the wider range hot water heater thermostat that can vary by degrees.

So temps and humidity are stable.

Opening the door was a huge issue last year as it causes larger swings in humidity and we all want to snatch those hatched chicks out instead of waiting for the hatch to finish.

I thought the big problem last year was from taking the turners out, putting in screen bottomed shelves and putting the eggs back in place on their sides as this lowered the yolks about an inch from their prior position.

They were also a lot that were shrink wrapped and a lot that were big fat bottoms on the chicks. So I thought the humidity was too high, had wide swings and shrinkwrapped from opening the door.

My incubator has a hatching drawer in the bottom so I couldn't put a heating element in there. I do skip a few egg holes in each direction from right under the light bulbs as well as right under the fans. I had the most viable eggs/rockers from the second shelf last year.

This year I have 20 eggs each on middle and bottom shelves.

WHY do we have to lay the eggs on the sides for hatching? They have just spent 18 days rocking side to side in the turners. I left them in the turner on the foam bator I started with last year and they crawled out ok. I can put the screened shelves in and remove the turners. This takes several minutes to do and the incubator loses all it's humidity and temperature when I do that, so I thought that the least disturbance would be to just turn the turners off?

cheers all,
I've hatched 2-3 batches in the foam bator and 1 last year in the custom cabinet one.
Bonnie