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.

 

[SamLockwood]

From experience, you're going to have to accept you're going to lose a significant portion of the hatch: I've had power interruptions a couple of times and it always causes problems.

I wouldn't worry of the egg turner worked or didn't a day or two early or late. I haven't seen that be as big a factor as the temperature dropping too much or a prolonged (2+ hours) drop in humidity.

If you think you're close to lockdown, put them in lockdown. Generally with incubated eggs I've had a tendency for them to hatch a day or two early, so if you're a little early or shouldn't hurt .

Decades of having electronics glitch or fail on me has taught me to always have an "old school" backup. Get a little notebook or calendar and mark the start date for incubation and the lockdown date. If you really want to get scientific you can keep track of different incubation techniques and the resulting hatch rates, etc.

If you plan on doing this again and haven't done it already, get one of those compact thermometer / hygrometer units and put it in your incubator. Most consumer incubators are a little off on their calibration, and the units log quite a bit of data so that if you have a power failure or some other screw up you can gauge how long it was, how low the temp or humidity got, and have some better idea of what you're dealing with.

 

[iwltfum]

From experience, you're going to have to accept you're going to lose a significant portion of the hatch: I've had power interruptions a couple of times and it always causes problems.

I wouldn't worry of the egg turner worked or didn't a day or two early or late. I haven't seen that be as big a factor as the temperature dropping too much or a prolonged (2+ hours) drop in humidity.

If you think you're close to lockdown, put them in lockdown. Generally with incubated eggs I've had a tendency for them to hatch a day or two early, so if you're a little early or shouldn't hurt .

Decades of having electronics glitch or fail on me has taught me to always have an "old school" backup. Get a little notebook or calendar and mark the start date for incubation and the lockdown date. If you really want to get scientific you can keep track of different incubation techniques and the resulting hatch rates, etc.

If you plan on doing this again and haven't done it already, get one of those compact thermometer / hygrometer units and put it in your incubator. Most consumer incubators are a little off on their calibration, and the units log quite a bit of data so that if you have a power failure or some other screw up you can gauge how long it was, how low the temp or humidity got, and have some better idea of what you're dealing with.

Yeah I'm definitely ready for a low hatch rate because of the power outage. I'm seeing a few wiggles here and there after starting lock down last night so Im remaining hopeful! Thanks for your reply.

 

[Debbie292d]

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?

I always put my eggs in lockdown five days out. Like @Ridgerunner said, they've already gotten the benefit of the first two weeks of rotation.

These are silkies, and I've had some early pips, so I don't take chances. On Day 16, they're moved to the hatcher, where the humidity is 70% and there's no rotation. I've hatched over 500 silkies this year alone like this.

I've heard of some great successes with some very long outages, so don't lose hope!

Wishing you a great hatch!