Hello...looking for some advice from resident experts! We obtained some hatching eggs for a Xmas present for my daughter for her first year of 4h showing birds. Put them in the incubator(brinsea 20) and after a week candled them...come to find out they were all duds except 2/3. Talked to the kid we obtained them from and he was kind enough to give me another dozen( daughter really wanted bantam wyandottes! or silkies, we went wit the Wyandottes) So now I have a staggered hatch in there...having a tough time as it with humidity. ranging between 35-50...cant seem to get it to stay at 40. So dry in our house it sucks the humidity out quick. How do I deal with lockdown or hatch with only the one incubator? I have a brooder ready to go for them ( due to hatch on 12th) Any tips? thanks
I'm a rookie at hatching and only incubated and hatched one batch so far so take my advice with a grain of salt. I'm starting breeding programs in another month for Barred Rocks, RIR's, and Buff Orpingtons, and I've been doing a lot of planning and preparation over the last 6-7 months or so since I'll be adding to the incubator on a weekly basis. The only solution I came up with for this scenario with this kind of volume is to have a cabinet incubator such as the Sportsman 1502 which I got. Your situation is similar just without the volume, but if I were you I'd probably at least get another smaller incubator which will solve your problem now and in the future if you want to hatch more eggs down the road. If you think you'll be hatching more eggs later you might want to look at an Rcom for smaller batches or a Sportsman for large projects. The nice thing about both is they control the temperature and humidity extremely well. I live in the middle of the desert and had no problem maintaining 45%-50% for incubation and 60% for hatching; outside it was about 5%-10%. I know these two brands cost more but I think they're an excellent value considering what you get. This is just my opinion but maybe others can chime in that have experience with quality incubators that are less expensive. Either way though I think a second incubator will give you much better results.
I have a brinsea it's a darn good incubator. I dry incubate so I don't worry about humidity unless it goes below 20. your 1st eggs are due to hatch on the 12th? how long have your 2nd set been in? I would probably just wait til the 1st set is ready to lockdown. go ahead and add water to raise humidity. let them hatch. after they hatch remove them. drain water clean and disinfect incubator and continue on with the 2nd batch. if the eggs don't seem to lose enough water and air cell is to small just run dry they will catch back up.
