Still a little confused on temps

[judsenn]

Correction ...7 hatched now. . ...still waiting on one slow poke.

 

[FarmTillURdead]

I'm no master! Just farm driven to feed myself and make a few bucks! ….and I like to see what I can get away with outside book of smarts.

Lots of my birds have had slightly bloody navels. They will heal up in a few hours. I would be led to believe that is from humidity just a touch to high in your incubator. The chick didn't quite "dry up" enough in the incubation process. I use a digital hydrometer. I bought 2 dial ones and neither were consistent after multiple calibrations over a week. Walmart has a nice digital one for 10 bucks that has temp on it too. I took it apart and drilled holes in the outer shell of it so I can get a fast accurate temp and humidity.
I hear a lot of people say not to flap the lid. I flap mine constantly.
Common sense tells me the eggs aren't going to instantly dry up. A sponge wouldn't get a crispy edge on it if you flapped the lid. Would it?

If you do flap - simply add more water. The humidity should return to normal in a few minutes. (according to my digital hydrometer). I have had to upright several eggs that get kicked around, pull chicks out, add water for humidity…. It doesn't seem to mess with my hatch rates. I might assume if you had a HUGE incubator it would take longer for humidity to correct itself but in a small enclosed space it seems to correct itself pretty quick. A fan does help with that too.

My turkeys usually take 3-4 days for them all to hatch so I can't leave the first hatched ones in there until they all come out. I find if I take them out as soon as they are floofy and fuzzy, and put them in the brooder, I don't have problems teaching them to eat and drink. They kind of figure it out on their own.
I have an order from the hatchery and I still have to remind them to eat, every day, several times a day, going on 2 weeks now. I even have a few of my older ones in there and if they don't see hands - that they imprinted on - they don't eat. I have lost 4 already. One drank itself to death, and the other 3 refused to eat or drink. I ordered them thinking I wasn't going to be successful at hatching. I have turkeys coming out my ears!

Here's a kicker… I have hatched a turkey today at 34 days! So far it looks normal. 3 more have pipped. I had almost given up! I figured I would give them a chance if I saw them wiggling in there. …so I am glad I held out! I just hope they aren't messed up or goofy. Only time will tell.

Just do what feels right to you. Things work different for different people. It's also the best way to learn what you can and can't do. If your devoted to anything you do… it's hard to mess up. If you are sloppy… well… there ya go! Let me know how things go and good luck!

 

[judsenn]

i ended up taking some out while a few eggs were pipped...i did it real quick though and according to my digital monitor it only dropped 5% humidity but came back up within a few minutes. I left that one poult with the bloody naval in there overnight with the other hatching chicks and was completely closed by morning...he/she is doing well. So overall I did what worked for me...a few flaps of the incubator to get hatched birdies out, a few assisted hatches, but all n all everything panned out because I got a 100% hatch rate of all 15 eggs that went into lockdown.!!

I have to admit, after reading sooo many stories on different threads I was pretty pessimistic and was only thinking I'd get like 5-10 hatches and figured I'd lose some. So I'm in complete AWE that all are running around.