Temp problems, totally confused

[tadimaali]

Hello,
I am having problems with temperatures. I have a styrofoam incubator, with two lamps, fan and 2 holes on one side, near the bottom and 2 on the other side, up high.
I also have three thermometers inside there (huh, had 4 for a while, it made everything more confusing) - one digital, with in-out temps (out with probe), one therm with humidity measurer and thermometer (no probe) together. And then very simple, liquid therm. Have had my grey partridge eggs going for second day now, but I am now really thinking the temps are not right. By the way, I am writing from Estonia (its in Europe, near Finland).
Well, my fan is working and humidity is 54% (I have read mostly, that it should be 60-65% - very confusing, here I read it`s better be lower....) and the temps are very odd. The two digital thermometers read -
1. Thermometer - In temp 100.9 (the one that is closer to the lamps, I have one on one side of the eggs and the other on the other side), out temp 96 - I filled a little plastic bag with water and the probe went in there, the size is quite the same as my eggs and the "false egg" is where the other eggs are, I could not get a water weasel here,
2. Thermometer, on the farther side (from lamps) of eggs is 99.1.
3. Thermometer, simple liquid is a little over 96.8. I had a second simple liquid one in there for a while, but they were quite similar, not showing enough high temp.
So, if I look at the two digital thermometers readings from "In temperature" without probe, they are quite ok temps, I think, if looking the average that the eggs could be in the middle. BUT, what is very strange, is
that the "false egg" has so low temp and the liquid therm as well. I bet my false egg is smaller that regular water weasel, but ... Now I don`t know, should I raise the temp or is is too dangerous (I know, then the two digital ones will get higher, one up to 102.2, or even more. To raise the temp, so that my "false egg" would be 99.5, I think the digitals would show dangerous temps already, 104 or so.
I am thinking, should I quit, before I get some really awful results (If the eggs wont develop, that wont be that bad)?

Sry for any mistakes on my english.

tadimaali

 

[JohnG]

I am having the same problem. I went to wal-mart and bought a springfield themometer so I could have a hygrometer and it is reading 101.2 and my other digital themometer is reading 100.1 I do not know which one to go by. I have a still air hovabator.

 

[rroven]

I feel your confusion. I too am using a styrofoam bator...did the digital therm which I think reads low in the bators. I started getting better readings and more accurate I think by putting a regular therm wrapped in an elastic (elastic to keep it from slipping through) in the top hole. Hubby put a fan under the other larger hole. We have high humidity here so I have not been too concerned with the humidity. My eggs are getting lighter (at day 14) and when I candle only the air sac on the big end shows through so they must be developing. At least I hope they are.

 

[tadimaali]

Ohmygod. My grey partridge eggs are on day 16 now, and I candled one egg just a minute ago - havent done that actually since now, I did not believe there would be any life and my mum was handling them for couple of weeks, while I was away. Well, I saw veins and very active movement!! Oh my ... I am so excited and shocked, that they actually have developed (well, this one anyway) up to now .... Now I am wondering, should I candle them all, does moving them at this point do any damage? Can I turn them upside down for candling - I did turn the big end down for candling ...

I am probably too stooped to play with life like that (I am involved with horses and dogs in a quite advanced level, so I should know better, right?), should have found out before I turned this one over ... Well, I think I will never try to hatch eggs, if they turn out a disaster (not normal chicks etc). But I AM very excited and, surprised, right now. Wow. I begin to understand, why you all are so crazy here, whatching eggs at night, not getting any sleep at times etc

 

[crazy huhn]

Hello,

how many eggs do you have in your incubator? I would go ahead and candle them all, just to eliminate any unfertile ones or ones with blood rings. Do not spend too much time on that, seeing veins is enough to know that something is growing in there. Handle the eggs with clean equipment and you will be fine if you do not keep them out of the incubator for longer than about 20 min total. You can turn them any direction.
But warning: Candling can be soooo addictive. Had the same problem, candled yesterday on day 11 and 9 out of 13 eggs looked perfect (not bad for mailed eggs).

 

[eggonomist]

My experience is very limited by my R+D has been going on a while, I have found great results in seting temperatures using an aquariam thermometer and placing the probe in an egg that has a penny size hole ciut off the top and filled with water. It takes about 2 days to bring the egg temp up despite having higher air temps. Also if your sampling rate is high on your thermometer then any fluctuation in air temp will be picked up, however the egg temp is what counts, thats why I make sure my probes always submerged in that egg as I know before I had huge temp swings, but now the egg (placed aywhere in the incubator is 99.4+_.2 degrees.)
the other thing to note, if you are trying to get humidity levels up then adding water or making the air wetter will decrease the temperature, especially if your adding cold water, again be prepaired to wait the best part of a day or two for them to stabilise again.

 

[tadimaali]

Thank you very much for good advice. I did candle them all last night (did not turn the egg anymore, moved the light), and at least for my inexperienced eyes, there was none to throw away - I saw movement in all of them, I think (was looking for veins and movement, huh). Air bubble on top, some darker matter and some lighter in the sharper end on some of them.... There are 12 eggs, and it will be very interesting to see, how they will turn out, will there be anything wrong. I did hold the eggs quite long actually, since I only have one pair of partridges working on the eggs

, so some of the first eggs were way older than 14 days. And also not perfect temp, 55,4 - 62,6 F and hum around 40-45%, for storing. I thought there would be only few fresher eggs developing.
If I candle the eggs one at a time, is max 20min out of the incubator for one egg? I think I did not do it longer for single egg, but fo all of them it did take longer, as it actually was very tricky to get so small eggs candled (should have worked the right equipment out with trial and error on some real eggs before). They are small eggs, and actually after the candkling session at night the temp was a bit lower even this morning .... hope they did not cool down too much, I have no intention to candle them again, just to wait, what next. I am just wondering, if I have the info, that grey partridge hatches eggs 23-25 days, should I stop the turning and raise the humidity on day 20, or 22 (maybe better earlier?)? Thanks so much for any ideas.

 

[crazy huhn]

Hello again,

the 20 minute limit was meant for all eggs together, because any time you open the incubator you will interfere in your temperature and humidity levels. But no worries now anymore, just let "Mother Nature" go its own way now.
Good luck hatching and keep us posted how it goes.........

 

[tadimaali]

Hi again, and a little update.
My first hatch did end quite well, inspite of all the worry and trouble with temp-s. I had 12 grey partridge eggs (which were not stored totally by the book, as I wrote before), out of 12 there was 12 chicks, that came out on day 25 (it is said, grey`s will take 23-25 days). Out of 12 one died of no apparent reason after few days, and one was "born" crippled (legs not right and one leg and wing somehow grown together). My mother helped the crippled one out, and apparently there was a good reason it could not get out on its own.

So then I put second batch into the incubator, there was 11 eggs, out of which one did not start to develop. 10 hatched out nicely on day 23, and again, one chick was deformed (neck was not straight, but to one side more, legs not right again, only able to crawl around and not able to move the head and neck much up). I helped to zip the egg for it, as it only zipped half of the egg and then just kept straining for many hours, but no change, after it managed to strain off the top of the egg, after me crushing a little more shell, you could see the neck was funny - reason for not been able to zip more, and later not getting on its legs...) So we had to cull it, after waiting a day, that maybe it would be better (hard for me to know, since I do not have any experience, but I read here, that somebody did have a chick with bad legs, and it did start walking). My husband cut off its little, sweet head... it was great, that I could get some instructions from here, what to do, though. Great place, this board. I cried so much ...

The remaining 9 chicks seem fine, as well as the other 10, that start to look more like adult birds now. Amazing, how small little partridge chicks are .... and sooo sweet, even more because they are so so tiny.

Well, I have now 11 new eggs in the incubator, but I do not have high hopes, since today was a very sudden power break (darn el company), and while trying to keep the temp up for 7,5 hours in my mothers greenhouse, we probaly cooked the eggs, it was very high temps for some time.
Fortunately, they are only on day 2.

Of course, what remains to bother me, is why does these deformed chicks happen. I did hope for this time, there would not be any. On the other hand, I do know, that since my partridges are very probably genetically the offspring of one batch of eggs (laid by one bird), that was brought from nature, with intention to breed back birds to the wild. I do not think the original breeder had been able to get any new local partridge-blood into his breeding, so that might be the reason for the deformaties, right? Or are my temps still not right...?
I think I would need to get new blood, if I want to continue, but it will be extremely hard, since the greys on most farms in Europe are not the same rDNA that we have here in the nature....

I actually never intended to breed and incubate (oh god, how difficult and complex it seemed, when I first go the idea - after I suddenly had some eggs - and looked into it and home-made incubators!), but now ... it does seem a bit like a disease, doesnt it? So now, addition to my horse- and dog sickness, I feel the need to get MORE eggs and those lovely chicks. I feel very very silly, sitting by the incubator for hours, though

. But seeing chicks getting out for the very first time .... is for sure like seeing one of worlds wonders, you feel like a child again.

Edit: oh, and about those temps: I have kept my incubators running by the simple, liquid thermometer, so I originally raised the temps that I had in my first post. So now, I have my simpe, liquid therm running between 98,6 and 100,4, sometimes it goes a little lower or a little higher, but not very long. It all depends on the position of the turner and my bathroom floor-warmer gadget settings, which I have to change sometimes. The digital ones on the other hand, show normally much higher temps, 101,5 and even 102,9. I think somehow they absorb the heat or something, and I usually go by the simple, liquid one, and keep the digitals for extra control.
I have kept the moisture not higher than 60% and for hatching, 80-85% (I aim for the 80, but it is hard to get down once they start to get out).