September Hatch-A-Long!

[epmchickens]

Now I have 4 pips! I bet I have a chick by morning! Maybe 2....lol

Hooray! Go chickies!

 

[jnjmanning]

Hooray! Go chickies!

I always dry hatch. Humidity ran 28-32% days 1-18 and I bumped to 65-68% for hatching

 

[DeannaA]

I thought dry hatch is no water. If I do no water, my incubator humidity is 20-25% even though the room is 45-65. I keep a jar of water in mine and it stays 30-40% the I keep it at 70% for lockdown. So am I doing a dry hatch? Before when I post a couple of months ago I was told my humitiy was way too high. But my air cells get huge if I don't keep it at least in the 30's.

 

[dretd]

I thought dry hatch is no water.  If I do no water, my incubator humidity is 20-25% even though the room is 45-65.  I keep a jar of water in mine and it stays 30-40% the I keep it at 70% for lockdown.  So am I doing a dry hatch?  Before when I post a couple of months ago I was told my humitiy was way too high.  But my air cells get huge if I don't keep it at least in the 30's.

There is no set rules on this. If your room relative humidity is higher, you can get away with little or no water in the incubator. If you live in an arid climate you had better add water or they lose too much. Then there are other factors such as how porous the egg is, how old they are,plugs in or out, the size even. I personally weigh each egg when I set them and write the weight in grams on the shell. I reweigh at candleing and track the waterless. The goal is to lose about 13% water at lockdown. I have hatched chicks with as much as 20% loss.

 

[DeannaA]

There is no set rules on this. If your room relative humidity is higher, you can get away with little or no water in the incubator. If you live in an arid climate you had better add water or they lose too much. Then there are other factors such as how porous the egg is, how old they are,plugs in or out, the size even. I personally weigh each egg when I set them and write the weight in grams on the shell. I reweigh at candleing and track the waterless. The goal is to lose about 13% water at lockdown. I have hatched chicks with as much as 20% loss.

Even when the humidity in my house is 65% the humidity inside my incubator is only 20% if I don't add any water. I don't know why.

 

[jnjmanning]

Even when the humidity in my house is 65% the humidity inside my incubator is only 20% if I don't add any water. I don't know why.

I would say air circulation, but that is just a guess. The room humidity effects the inside humidity because there should be air exchange between room air and incubator air. This is also essential for proper chick development.

 

[Lynnae4913]

Oh awesome! Glad I found this thread! I'm a newbie here and a newbie at hatching chicks. I set my first eggs last week. They will be due Sept. 10th. Needless to say, I am excited. I set 31 eggs. Did the day 7 candle and had 2 bad eggs, 2 possible clear and the rest all had veins and wiggly babies. I have Light Brahmas and RIR's and a speckled hen crossed with a Lavender roo. These are from my own chickens which are about a year old now. I was getting more eggs than we could eat, sell, or give away... so I decided it must be time to hatch some! It'll be nice to have this group to follow along with everyone else!

 

[jnjmanning]

Oh awesome! Glad I found this thread! I'm a newbie here and a newbie at hatching chicks. I set my first eggs last week. They will be due Sept. 10th. Needless to say, I am excited. I set 31 eggs. Did the day 7 candle and had 2 bad eggs, 2 possible clear and the rest all had veins and wiggly babies. I have Light Brahmas and RIR's and a speckled hen crossed with a Lavender roo. These are from my own chickens which are about a year old now. I was getting more eggs than we could eat, sell, or give away... so I decided it must be time to hatch some! It'll be nice to have this group to follow along with everyone else!

Those are the best eggs to set for the first time!!! But beware, it can become addicting!!!! LOL

 

[epmchickens]

I thought dry hatch is no water.  If I do no water, my incubator humidity is 20-25% even though the room is 45-65.  I keep a jar of water in mine and it stays 30-40% the I keep it at 70% for lockdown.  So am I doing a dry hatch?  Before when I post a couple of months ago I was told my humitiy was way too high.  But my air cells get huge if I don't keep it at least in the 30's.

You're right. Dry hatching is adding little to no water to the incubator until the end for hatching. Here in pa though, in august, I couldn't have gotten my humidity lower than 30% lol. So I just kinda let the eggs go with whatever the room was at and that worked out fine for me. I figure that if chickens can hatch eggs with whatever conditions nature provides so can I lol. And I agree with you, 25% humidty seems to grow HUGE air cells too soon for my taste.

 

[epmchickens]

Oh awesome! Glad I found this thread! I'm a newbie here and a newbie at hatching chicks. I set my first eggs last week. They will be due Sept. 10th. Needless to say, I am excited. I set 31 eggs. Did the day 7 candle and had 2 bad eggs, 2 possible clear and the rest all had veins and wiggly babies. I have Light Brahmas and RIR's and a speckled hen crossed with a Lavender roo. These are from my own chickens which are about a year old now. I was getting more eggs than we could eat, sell, or give away... so I decided it must be time to hatch some! It'll be nice to have this group to follow along with everyone else!

I hope they hatch well for you! My husband does not believe that the more eggs in the incubator the better they do ;-). But I just set 40 for september lol. I'm down to 36 because I had 4 infertile eggs. Good luck to us all!