Small air cell and hatching mat questions

[pointsalamander]

So I am not a very experienced or a very successful chicken hatcher, but this hasn't stopped me from trying for a 3rd time.

I currently have 8 eggs that managed to develop (the others I need to discuss with the seller, they weren't shipped but probably cold damaged).

They are bantam eggs on day 17 or 18 (I need to go count). I candled one just to see and the air cell looks a little small compared to the drawings and photos I have seen on where it should be. Truthfully it is how my other incubated eggs looked too, so I think I just suck at humidity monitoring (even with a monitor). I read on here that one of the things to do is prop the air cell up to try prevent the liquid from getting in the air space. Well I don't have any egg cartons (thanks kids).

Is is possible to use something else to do the same idea? I have tiny baking cups and tiny red solo cups that I could 100 & cut up or could I roll up papertowel and make a small circle from that.


Also last hatch one of my little babies kept slipping on the wire bottom of the VERY old Hovabator I have with the square wire bottom. So I got some shelf/rug liner to prevent slipping (because that little one got to spend his next 24 hours in a cup and he was pissed about it. But then I got to thinking if I use these will their little claws get stuck in it and then cause a different issue.

Photo is of the tiny baking cups and tiny solo cups I have as well as the two different versions of liner for the bottom of the incubator.

Appreciated would be DO's or DON'T do that advice. Because well I don't want to make everything worse. But I feel like I should try something different.

 

[Trisseh]

Can you get us some candling pics? What’s your humidity at right now? You can always drop it dramatically if you’re concerned the air cells are way too small, and then bump it back once you have an external pip. I don’t increase my humidity until there’s either an external pip (when I’m home to keep an eye on them) or when I candle and there’s an internal pip, and I’ll be gone for the day.

I’ve had problems with eggs positioned more vertically for hatching, although many others have not. I prefer to incubate and hatch horizontally but that’s just my preference and what I’m used to.

I haven’t had any issues with any chick parts getting stuck in the shelf liner, and it’s definitely a lot easier on them than that old wire stuff. the grey stuff on the far left of your photo looks like the kind I use.

 

[pointsalamander]

Can you get us some candling pics? What’s your humidity at right now? You can always drop it dramatically if you’re concerned the air cells are way too small, and then bump it back once you have an external pip. I don’t increase my humidity until there’s either an external pip (when I’m home to keep an eye on them) or when I candle and there’s an internal pip, and I’ll be gone for the day.

I’ve had problems with eggs positioned more vertically for hatching, although many others have not. I prefer to incubate and hatch horizontally but that’s just my preference and what I’m used to.

I haven’t had any issues with any chick parts getting stuck in the shelf liner, and it’s definitely a lot easier on them than that old wire stuff. the grey stuff on the far left of your photo looks like the kind I use.

Thankfully my furnace room in my basement has no access to outside light. So it works great for bright sunny day candling. They don't seem horrible small, but definitely not as big as the impression I get from the drawings in the hatching guide, but maybe its different for bantams?

Humidity is hard to control because apparently adding a little water always went a long ways. So it would range between 30 and 56 accidently getting down into the 20's a few times. I would never add much water, just to 1 channel on the thing and I wouldn't fill it. I think I added water about 4 or 5 times. And I was hand turning them so it would get opened for 30 seconds a few times a day.