Setting Thursday March 25.. Anyone want to join me??

[GreenGoddess]

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From everything I read, humidity between 60-65 is good for lockdown!

Goddess

 

[GreenGoddess]

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I would suggest using a tube like you would find for an aquarium or medical tubing and go to any pharmacy and ask for a syringe.. They will normally give you one or two for free.. Put the tubing into one of the vent holes and put water in the tray that way.. Opening the incubator during the last 3 days is a BIG no no! Each time you open it, you let precious humidity out and can shrink wrap the chicks! You don't want to go through the entire 18 days only to have chicks that cannot hatch anyway.. As for the humidity now, i would suggest you put some water in the trays and try to get it up to 40%.. Just add a little at a time to figure out how much you would need.. 30% is a bit low..

Goddess

 

[gckiddhouse]

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You need to take the turner completely out of the incubator or you will end up with a hard mess to clean up and it won't give the chicks that hatch room to walk around in the bator. They could also get hurt.

I use the waffle like shelf liner in the bottom of my incubator to cover the hardware cloth. Many people do not, but I had one chick get its wing stuck on the pointy ends of the hardware cloth one and I felt so bad that I've covered it since!

If your humidity level is only at 30% right now, you might want to try and raise it up towards 40%. 30% is just to low.

On day 18 you will bump your humidity levels up to around 65%. The temp. stays the same.

Lot of luck to you and your hatch!

To be fair, there are lots of folks here on BYC that advocate for the "dry hatch" method. They keep the humidity between 25% and 35% until lockdown. They all say they have much more successful hatches this way, so you are probably just fine. There are opinions both ways and I am no expert, but just don't worry. I have kept mine between 25 and 30%, but I think my hygrometer reads a little low, so probably about the same as you.
65% for lockdown seems to be what all recommend either way.

We are in lockdown, too! Having trouble getting the humidity up, but pretty sure it is higher than what the hygrometer reads.

The broody hen got up this morning to get some water and food and managed to rival my 82 lb dog with the size of her broody poo!! WOW! Hopefully she is going into "lockdown" too.
Not sure how they know!

I like to use the shelf liner, too. Soft on the little fuzzy butts! I wonder if that mesh gets hot. Could be much hotter than the air.

Good luck with your hatch!

 

[KDbeads]

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Trying to figure that one out since the last 17 hatched out really nice quality. On these little ones with the 6 toes, there are 3 in the back, either all fused or 2 of them fused into one. One of the ones that didn't make it had the 3 in the back all fused on both feet.

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Yeah I bumped the humidity up to 70% because of those membranes, we have a hard time cracking those eggs for eating because of it too. And it's just 2 of the EE's that do it. Have no idea why they are pipping on the wrong end but these are monster XXL eggs that are almost oval so there's enough room for them to get confused.

When I got home there were 4 more mutts hatched and flopping around in the bator, they escaped the breed boxes but I was able to tell pretty fast who came from who. The little guy that knocked the shell off was still having trouble with that membrane so I intervened and slipped it right off, no blood, no gunk, just nice and easy. He was ready to get out and quit fighting that membrane! Dented EE egg chick has finally worked himself free as well. So far there are only 3 LF eggs that haven't pipped and 4 silkies in with them that haven't pipped. Still nothing from the last few in the first batch

 

[gckiddhouse]

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Trying to figure that one out since the last 17 hatched out really nice quality. On these little ones with the 6 toes, there are 3 in the back, either all fused or 2 of them fused into one. One of the ones that didn't make it had the 3 in the back all fused on both feet.

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Yeah I bumped the humidity up to 70% because of those membranes, we have a hard time cracking those eggs for eating because of it too. And it's just 2 of the EE's that do it. Have no idea why they are pipping on the wrong end but these are monster XXL eggs that are almost oval so there's enough room for them to get confused.

When I got home there were 4 more mutts hatched and flopping around in the bator, they escaped the breed boxes but I was able to tell pretty fast who came from who. The little guy that knocked the shell off was still having trouble with that membrane so I intervened and slipped it right off, no blood, no gunk, just nice and easy. He was ready to get out and quit fighting that membrane! Dented EE egg chick has finally worked himself free as well. So far there are only 3 LF eggs that haven't pipped and 4 silkies in with them that haven't pipped. Still nothing from the last few in the first batch

I had an XXL egg in my incubator and found, when I candled it that what I thought was the small end, was where the air cell was!!

You never know with those huge eggs. Hope it goes well!!

 

[KDbeads]

So far... I think there are 8 or 9 left in the second batch in the bator that are either not pipped yet or are in various stages of hatching out of 29 going into lock down. The second taped egg has pipped, right into the tape so I carefully peeled off the tape and slid it back in. The silkies coming out of this hatch look AWESOME!!!! Now I'm going to have a hard time picking who I want to keep! I have a ton of Killer juniors that I'll need to decide on as well, so far the eggs he fertilized are coming out wither looking all black just like he did at hatch or like yellow legged EE's, really cool. My silkie/EE mix hatched and looks blue with 4 perfect toes and quite the screamer, it was it's momma's very first egg ever

I brought broody mama in yesterday and plopped her in with the chicks. At first she was totally freaked out by them and was standing on top of the feeder to get away from them as they swarmed her looking for feathers to curl into. Finally she decided to calm down (9 under her at that point):

As of right now I'm letting her have the ones that will be going away, the rest that I have to decide on are in another brooder with legs banded, marking what hen they came from. She was taking off their bands! I'm thinking she'll still get about a dozen or more once we decide.


As for the first batch..... Something told me just to check.... All the eggs left were not past day 15, so something happened to that bator around that time. Oh well. Is what it is.

 

[GreenGoddess]

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That picture is just so cute!!! I'm sorry to hear about your second batch... Looking forward to seeing more pics!!

Goddess

 

[KDbeads]

Ok..... and we are done with a few casualties though but I'm really happy over all.
The last 9 that were in the bator, 2 are hatched completely, one had a bit of a problem and is now recovering from being stuck in the tangled membrane. The remaining 6 are goners, 2 were Ezzy's and she throws cross beaks on occasion, they were crossed pretty bad and only pipped, never made it out. 2 were Berthas and we think she throws a bunch that don't finish closing themselves before they zip because all but 2 we've tried so far have not made it, in this case that's what happened, they zipped and sat there with the yolk still visible and didn't make it, will no longer be setting any of her eggs. The last 2 went into lock down as questionables, I cracked them open and they had stopped developing about day 13.

Once the last one gets dried off and cleaned up (it pooed on itself in shell last night, made a mess) I'll put up pics!


Oh my goodness I have 30 chicks in the house!

 

[oldno7ranch]

KD Congrats on the 30 new chicks!!! I hope I have 30 in the house next week...

 

[crosbygroup]

What are the pros and cons of putting the eggs in cartons for lockdown? I have mine in an automatic egg turner now, but, I was thinking of putting them in the cartons for lockdown (when I remove the turner). I keep reading about chicks playing soccer with the unhatched eggs.