Setting eggs on 8/7/12 !! Anyone else?

[Big A Chickens]

I have 14 Buff Orpington eggs that I will be setting August 8th. This is my first attempt to hatch eggs so hopefully everthing goes well. I have been running my incubator for 1 week now and the temp has been steady at 99.6 and humidity at 47% to 53%. Anyone else setting eggs around this time?

 

[Arielle]

I just set a few eggs last night or was it today? Good thing I date all the eggs.

I am running multiple hatches, staggared hatches, of turkeys, duck and black copper marans. I am done hatching buffs for this year. I have about 50 chicks of various ages. Love the BO.

I have been hatching for a year--can I make a suggestion? Unless you live in the desert try the dry incubation method. Get your humidity down to 30% RH if you have a small incubator, a desk top type. Large cabinet incubators are a different ballgame.

You have time to remove the water. Dry the wells before adding the eggs.

What do you think of changing to dry incubation?

 

[Big A Chickens]

I am open to any suggestions since this is my first time attempting to incubate eggs. I am not worried about the temp. My incubator hold a steady 99.7 degrees throughout. However I have received feedback concerning humidity and the range varies alot from what I gather. I've heard anywhere from 40 - 45 percent before lockdown up to 60 - 65 percent before lockdown. So that is where most of my concern is. How is your hatch rate at 30% ? BC Marans are next on my hatch list if everything goes well!!!

 

[Arielle]

I do pretty good--my first time hatching, which was both turkeys and chickens, was about50%. I was stoked.

Look up Worrell and dry incubation and you will find a lot. Worrell writes extensively about the dramatic increase in the hatching % when he dropped the humidity.

I have been hatching all summer, and not added a drop of water until lockdown.

What area of the country do you live in? What is the climate like? Rainy? Desert dry? Every location is unique.

DId you find an air cell diagram yet?

 

[Big A Chickens]

Ok I am going to jump on board with the dry incubation method. I have found Worrell and dry incubation here in BYC. I have also searched for pics for air cells and printed them out. I quess tomorrow I will also start building a second incubator also for lockdown purposes. You have such wonderful advice. If it is not a problem I would like to keep you posted on how everything goes !!!

 

[Big A Chickens]

By the way I live in Georgia and it is hot but humid with chances of rain for the next few days. My incubator is in a climate controlled area where the temp and humidity have very minimal changes.

 

[Arielle]

I figure I'm in for the adventure of hatching over the next few weeks too! Marans are hard to see into. the best I can do is watch for air cell development. THe turkey eggs are very pale, almost white and the veins are very easy to see. SOmetimes I can see the em bryo wiggle--I alway get giddy!!!!! I've only seen it a few times and it's exciting every time.


Be sure to track your RH every day. Do you have a log book? I found hatching or not hatching, lol, to be a subtle difference in temp or humiidty or something else I wasn't picking up on. A notebook was very helpful. I could pick up on if the temp was slowly dropping and for how long; 1 reading isn't so important but 6, 7 , 8 ? You get the idea.

Where did you get your BO eggs?? Can you post pictures. I'm not so great at pictures myself.

 

[Big A Chickens]

I picked up my BO eggs from a local farmer about 30 minutes away. He is NPIP certified and thats where I have purchased all of my chicks from over the past 4 months. I was going to buy some BO chicks from him last month but he had a waiting list. So when I contacted him over the weekend to see how far I had moved up he told me that I was close to the top for the hatch coming up but if I wanted to but if I wanted to get some hatching eggs to try for myself I could.

Jumping ahead of the game I built my incubator before I ever bought my first chick so I figured that this would be a perfect time for me to try it out since my orginal plan was to hatch eggs from the start.

My problem now is that he doesn't breed BC Marans so I don't know where I am going to get those eggs from yet.

I have removed the water tray and my RH has gone from 53 to 40, but temp has dropped some also. I will adjust it since its not to difficult to adjust and see if the humidity goes down a bit more.

And I now have my notebook ready !!!!

 

[Big A Chickens]

As soon as I can I will post some pics and let you know.!!

 

[Arielle]

BC are tricky to hatch if they have been shipped. Get your hatching method dow n pat then try for something harder like marans.