Tempature question

[lazy gardener]

I urge you to try the lower humidity route. I have excellent hatches in home made bator with humidity 30 - 40% through day 17. If you have not yet read all of Incubating Eggs 101 in the learning center, please do so.

 

[oregonkat]

Will do, we have 22 eggs in now, it is hard to keep the humidity level, I had read a few posts I about low humidity incubating, maybe if this doesn’t work I will try that route, we prob should have gotten a different incubator even though the reviews were good on this one, looks like we should have between 70-80% hatch rate with the eggs that are fertile, would be happy with 50%, today outside humidity is 26% and tomorrow around 17%

This is a direct copy from the article I mentioned above. Humidity at altitude must be increased "The first priority when incubating eggs at high altitudes is to ensure that egg weight losses are correct (see Hatchery How To No.1 for recommendations on optimum egg weight loss). Based on the fact that water diffuses through the pores in the eggshell faster at altitude this would mean running a higher incubator humidity set-point." I would try keeping the humidity level in the 40's if possible. IMHO.

 

[jrskihog]

This is a direct copy from the article I mentioned above. Humidity at altitude must be increased "The first priority when incubating eggs at high altitudes is to ensure that egg weight losses are correct (see Hatchery How To No.1 for recommendations on optimum egg weight loss). Based on the fact that water diffuses through the pores in the eggshell faster at altitude this would mean running a higher incubator humidity set-point." I would try keeping the humidity level in the 40's if possible. IMHO.

Some other people on a local FB page said they set the humidity level around 50-55%

We candled the eggs tonight took 2 of them out, some where hard to tell we think we have 8-10 that are good the others were hard to tell; will be able to tell on the next candling.

 

[jrskihog]

So 6 infertile eggs and 3 blood rings were taken out, when we took the egg turner out and we candled again 4 looked questionable the rest looked good, 1 hatched over night no other pips yet but we did notice that the temp is slightly cooler with the egg turner out, I’m assuming this is because they are slightly lower in the incubator. So hopefully they will hatch in the next day. What’s the longest to leave the eggs in past the 21 days?

 

[oregonkat]

So 6 infertile eggs and 3 blood rings were taken out, when we took the egg turner out and we candled again 4 looked questionable the rest looked good, 1 hatched over night no other pips yet but we did notice that the temp is slightly cooler with the egg turner out, I’m assuming this is because they are slightly lower in the incubator. So hopefully they will hatch in the next day. What’s the longest to leave the eggs in past the 21 days?

If all is well with the remaining eggs, they can take up to 25 days! The slightly lower temp in the bator should not be a problem as long as it is only a degree or so. So glad you got a pip, if you are feeling like it and the questionable eggs actually dont make it, although I hope they do, please do an eggtopsy on them and see if you can tell what happened. I would be very interested to know.

 

[oregonkat]

Yes they are eggs we collected form our flock, I will read that article I think I read a different one. Yes from what I read if you get eggs from a lower altitude the hatch rate is much lower, we collected these eggs over a 3 day period. We have 4 eggs that we couldn’t get before one of us left for work (they usually lay later in the day on cold days if at all) and it was a high of 34 and a low of 18 they didn’t freeze but were very cold when we collected them, we maked those to see if it has a influence on hatch/fertility.

Were these marked ones the infertile ones?

 

[jrskihog]

The temp is about 98 in most spots, it sure seems that this incubator does not hold temps very well, 2 of the marked ones are still in and 1 the one that hatched was one of the marked ones.

 

[oregonkat]

The temp is about 98 in most spots, it sure seems that this incubator does not hold temps very well, 2 of the marked ones are still in and 1 the one that hatched was one of the marked ones.

Interesting, so the cold did not have an effect on fertility, at least for the one that hatched! 98 is just fine. No worries there, how is your humidity?

 

[jrskihog]

2 of the 4 eggs in the cold were infertile, humidity is between 64-55% I keep adding water to a sponge inside the incubator with a straw, with all 3 channels filled up the highest we could get was 49% just didn’t let it go below 43%

 

[jrskihog]

Still no other pips yet, how long can we leave the chick that hatched in the incubator or should we remove it? We realized this chick hatched early looks nice and strong so far.