Simulated Natural Nest Incubation~Experiment #1 So it begins....

[foxvalleyfarm]

What day are you on Bee?

 

[Beekissed]

Day 17!!! All three eggs still showing movement and air cells still growing and starting to tilt a bit. Nest temps very stable, turning 4 times a day on average, added water to the soil last night.

 

[Shellz]

Alright Bee! Almost there...so exciting!

 

[aart]

Yayy for day 17! Nice hoop coop!

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

Day 17!!!  All three eggs still showing movement and air cells still growing and starting to tilt a bit.  Nest temps very stable, turning 4 times a day on average, added water to the soil last night. 

Woot! Woot! I think I'm down to one baby. My temps are too high even on setting 1

 

[AmericanMom]

Day 17!!! All three eggs still showing movement and air cells still growing and starting to tilt a bit. Nest temps very stable, turning 4 times a day on average, added water to the soil last night.

Very nice Bee!! Cant wait to see how this works out!!

 

[Beekissed]

Woot! Woot! I think I'm down to one baby. My temps are too high even on setting 1

That is so strange that you can't get those temps stable in the nest box....all three of mine held temps very steady unless I goofed it up on my own. I pretty much keep this one on setting #3 and it stays at 100.0. When it's much colder(below 40*) or much warmer(60* and above) in the room it will go down or up one or two degrees from that and then I just lay that feather pad over the heating pad or take it off and it accounts for those variations. Right now it's cold and the temp went down to 98.5, so I applied the feather pad and it came right up to 100.0 again.

Could be you'll have to play with this method a bit more to get your controls right?

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

That is so strange that you can't get those temps stable in the nest box....all three of mine held temps very steady unless I goofed it up on my own.  I pretty much keep this one on setting #3 and it stays at 100.0.  When it's much colder(below 40*) or much warmer(60* and above) in the room it will go down or up one or two degrees from that and then I just lay that feather pad over the heating pad or take it off and it accounts for those variations.  Right now it's cold and the temp went down to 98.5, so I applied the feather pad and it came right up to 100.0 again. 

Could be you'll have to play with this method a bit more to get your controls right? 

Probably. I think my box is more sensitive to outside tempos which are in the 70s here now. So I have no idea. And they were stable for the last week. I had it on 2 and I was good. Maybe the babies are putting of heat.

 

[Beekissed]

Probably. I think my box is more sensitive to outside tempos which are in the 70s here now. So I have no idea. And they were stable for the last week. I had it on 2 and I was good. Maybe the babies are putting of heat.

Fred had told me to watch for temp spikes on the 13th day but I think ours may be a little behind typical incubators..maybe a day. I know this nest box is much more stable than the first one and the only thing I changed was the depth of the soil under the nest....the first one I had a lot of composting materials from the coop but in this box I sampled actual soil from the forest floor first, then a thin layer of the bedding from the coop and then the hay.

One thing I noticed about your box that is different than mine is that you have the plastic bag lining inside the entire box and this may trap temps more than just the cardboard...not sure. Mine just lines the bottom of the box and comes up about 2 inches on the sides, but no more.

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

That could be it... Hum. The bag was to big and I was to lazy to trim it. Dang if they died due to my own error in gonna be really upset