Setting the airplane eggs...

[mmaddie's mom]

I put the airplane eggs in the incubator today. ( see: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=59359-airplane-eggs ) We'll see if the changes of pressure from the plane ride has any affect on their viability?

I'll candle in 10 days.

 

[BellevueOmlet]

interesting topic. I've never heard of that before. Hopefully it will have no effect.

 

[mmaddie's mom]

I'm an inexperienced incubatorer myself so I gave a dozen eggs to an experienced incubatorer friend of mine to see if he has better luck.

I put in 8 Bantam Lavender Ameraucanas and 6 Black Copper Marans... my friend is doing 12 BCMs.

Mine...

My friend's...

I'm SO excited!

 

[mmaddie's mom]

after 24 hours, I'm having trouble getting the temp up... it has stayed @ 97*F. I just turned the screw a bit and hope I can get it up where it needs to be. Don't understand... when testing, it stayed perfectly @ 100*F.

 

[Serina81]

I think the eggs absorb some of the heat and cools down the incubator because that always happens to me when I put eggs in. Plus, if you didn't have the humidity up when you leveled out the temp then that could affect it too

 

[mmaddie's mom]

Thanks... that must be it. It now has settled at 99*F and 41% humidity... I'm thinking that's ok?

 

[Serina81]

I'd try getting both up a little bit. 99.5 is ideal temp and at least 50% humidity IMHO

 

[mmaddie's mom]

Thanks... will try

 

[mmaddie's mom]

The mercury thermometer that is attached to the 'bator (Brinsea ECO 20) reads just a hair over 100*F and the WalMart digital (w/hygrometer) reads 99*F... I closed the vent entirely to see if I can get the humidity up a bit. I have about 4 hours of mowing to do @ the neighbor's and will check when I get back home and see what is going on. Thanks.

 

[Serina81]

This is plain and simple, yet the MOST important part of hatching.
Still-air incubator (no fan):101.5 degrees measured at the TOP of the eggs.
Fan Forced incubator: 99.5 degrees measured anywhere in the incubator.
Humidity: 60-65% for the first 18 days, 80-85% for the last 3 days.
You can sneak by with humidity numbers that aren't very accurate, but the combination of poor humidity and temperature will definately cause problems at hatch time. If your temperature is not accurate you will DEFINATELY have problems at hatch time. The bigger the deviation from the proper temperature, the bigger your problems will be!

This is from a website http://www.shilala.com/relative.html and you can see a chart here for figuring out relative humidity. I use an electric thermostat deal so I'm a little fuzzy with figuring this out. Is your hygrometer relative humidity percent or the actual temperature of a wet bulb thermometer? I think either way the humidity is actually high ??

Maybe somebody else can step in here and give some advice