Setting eggs

[Donna et]

Hi So I have some eggs in the incubator polish silkie and sablepoot and I set the incubator on day 21 and it counts down so midday today it will say day 4 my question is do I put the incubator on lockdown today or tomorrow, as I know it should be on day 18 so in reverse is today effectively day 18. Never been able to work that out. Thank you everyone

 

[raingarden]

When you set them is time zero. 24 hours later it has been one day. Lock them down when it has been eighteen days.

 

[Silexian]

Just like temp and humidity levels. There is a little forgivable room for error. If you lockdown on day 17 or 18. I doubt that your eggs will notice.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Just like temp and humidity levels. There is a little forgivable room for error. If you lockdown on day 17 or 18. I doubt that your eggs will notice.

I agree with this.

Do you remember the day you actually put the eggs in the incubator and started them? What was the date and day of the week?

An egg does not have a day's worth of incubation the instant you put it in the incubator, it takes 24 hours for it to have a day's worth of incubation. So if you are counting the days you say "one" 24 hours after you put it in the incubator. So lets go through this. Say you put the eggs in the incubator on Thursday March 3rd. You say "one" on Friday March 4th. "two" Saturday March 5th, and so on. It actually helps to look at a calendar and touch the dates when you do this. If you do this you will say "18" on Monday, March 21st. That is lockdown. If you continue counting this way you will say "21" on Thursday March 24th.

An easy way to check your counting is that the day of the week you started them is the day of the week you should say "21". In my example starting them on Thursday the 3rd you say "21" on Thursday the 24th. From Thursday to Thursday. If you say "21" on the right day then you have to say "18" on the right day.

I'm not doing it this way to be snarky and a smart aleck, this can easily be confusing. People get it wrong all the time. Many incubators can't be programmed to count for you, certainly no broody hen. I believe you really need to be able to do this yourself.

Never been able to work that out.

To be honest, I can't either unless I do it my way.

 

[Donna et]

I agree with this.

Do you remember the day you actually put the eggs in the incubator and started them? What was the date and day of the week?

An egg does not have a day's worth of incubation the instant you put it in the incubator, it takes 24 hours for it to have a day's worth of incubation. So if you are counting the days you say "one" 24 hours after you put it in the incubator. So lets go through this. Say you put the eggs in the incubator on Thursday March 3rd. You say "one" on Friday March 4th. "two" Saturday March 5th, and so on. It actually helps to look at a calendar and touch the dates when you do this. If you do this you will say "18" on Monday, March 21st. That is lockdown. If you continue counting this way you will say "21" on Thursday March 24th.

An easy way to check your counting is that the day of the week you started them is the day of the week you should say "21". In my example starting them on Thursday the 3rd you say "21" on Thursday the 24th. From Thursday to Thursday. If you say "21" on the right day then you have to say "18" on the right day.

I'm not doing it this way to be snarky and a smart aleck, this can easily be confusing. People get it wrong all the time. Many incubators can't be programmed to count for you, certainly no broody hen. I believe you really need to be able to do this yourself.


To be honest, I can't either unless I do it my way.

Thank you yes was looking on my calendar earlier and that's how I done it because it was Tuesday March 1st so lockdown will be tomorrow afternoon. Shame those incubators didn't count upwards instead of backwards. Its taken me so long to work this out but definitely a calendar countdown is needed for me, thank you so much.

 

[Silexian]

On a calendar. Starting from the square that I set the eggs. I just count four squares, straight down. Using March 2022. If you set your eggs on the 1st. The 22nd will be the projected hatch day. Counting back three days. The 19th will be lockdown. Since I normally have more than one incubator going. I use the Egg Hatcher App. So I get alerts to help me keep track of multiple hatchings.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I did some hatches in the fall/winter, and locked down on day 17 and had really good hatches still. but candle first it should be dark in the point, and a proper dip in the egg...