Questions about lockdown

[iwltfum]

Long story short, my power went out for a significant amount of hours during my latest incubation. So I reset the incubator as best I could to the correct number of days left. But I think my egg turner stopped turning about half a day early because of that (maybe even a day and a half early?) - I was foolishly relying on the incubator to keep track of time and didn't keep track of the set day on an actual calendar.

Anyway my question is, should I just roll with the incubators timing and bump my humidity now for lockdown mode (Possibly as early as 1.5 days early?).

I have to assume the egg turner stopped a few hours ago. Would it be bad if the turner stopped for a few hours and then continued for another day at this stage? Because I could just turn the turner back on go with my gut that it's still 1.5 days early...

Or should I leave the turner stopped, but not bump the humidity until later.

I guess the root of my question is, if there was a need to either start lockdown a day late or a day early, which would be less problematic?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Do you get the feeling it would be better to rely on yourself for this stuff instead of relying on what somebody else programmed into electronics? I know it is too late to help you in this case but maybe consider writing down the date you started the eggs on a calendar as a back-up. Of course that assumes you still have a calendar.

As far as turning goes, it is not important now. You have gained all the benefit from turning after two weeks of incubation. You could have stopped turning a couple of days ago without any problems.

Humidity is a bit more complicated. During the first part of incubation humidity controls how much moisture is lost. You want the egg to lose enough moisture without losing too much. There is a pretty wide window in how much it loses that works, which helps, but there is still a window.

When the egg hatches you want the humidity to be high enough so the chick is not shrink-wrapped when it external pips. So you want to raise the humidity before the first egg external pips.

When will your first egg external pip? I don't know. How much moisture have your eggs lost up to this point, are they within the acceptable window? I don't know. Do you have a history of hatching with this incubator, do the eggs regularly hatch early or late? I don't know how important it is for you to raise the humidity a bit early or how safe it is to wait until a bit later.

I don't think a day early or late on the humidity will make that much difference in most cases.

 

[iwltfum]

Do you get the feeling it would be better to rely on yourself for this stuff instead of relying on what somebody else programmed into electronics? I know it is too late to help you in this case but maybe consider writing down the date you started the eggs on a calendar as a back-up. Of course that assumes you still have a calendar.

As far as turning goes, it is not important now. You have gained all the benefit from turning after two weeks of incubation. You could have stopped turning a couple of days ago without any problems.

Humidity is a bit more complicated. During the first part of incubation humidity controls how much moisture is lost. You want the egg to lose enough moisture without losing too much. There is a pretty wide window in how much it loses that works, which helps, but there is still a window.

When the egg hatches you want the humidity to be high enough so the chick is not shrink-wrapped when it external pips. So you want to raise the humidity before the first egg external pips.

When will your first egg external pip? I don't know. How much moisture have your eggs lost up to this point, are they within the acceptable window? I don't know. Do you have a history of hatching with this incubator, do the eggs regularly hatch early or late? I don't know how important it is for you to raise the humidity a bit early or how safe it is to wait until a bit later.

I don't think a day early or late on the humidity will make that much difference in most cases.

Thanks for that explanation. Yes of course I usually write the date down, but life got in the way this time. It's my third clutch in the incubator this season and I just forgot I guess. From what your saying, it seems like a toss up eh? I've been doing a dry hatch because it's so humid here and I believe the humidity has been in a good range, but I haven't been weighing them so I guess I really have no good way of knowing either way. I think I might just split the difference and start lockdown humidity tonight.