I'm so excited!! My DH and I recently moved from Texas back to Alaska. I have hatched eggs in Texas but have no experience hatching in this climate. The air is very dry. In a couple of months I will be getting eggs from my Mom's flock. She has Buff Orpingtons from Hinkjc and they are lovely. I just had to have some of them. Well having no experience in this drier climate I assumed that keeping the humidity up might be a problem and decided a test hatch might be in order. PaulaJoAnne has graciously allowed me to set 48 or so eggs for her and I am getting so excited about it. She has standard Cochins, RIRs,EEs, and Cms. I don't know which she is sending me but it will be so fun to see what comes out. She will get her babies back in a bit over three weeks when they hatch and I will hopefully have a good idea what it takes to hatch the BO's Mom is sending me. PaulaJoAnne's eggs will not be shipped as we will drive out to get them tomorrow.
Do I need to let them sit for a while or can I just go ahead and load them up?
I have cut the bottoms out of the cups in the cardboard egg cartons I have and was planning to set them in there for ease of turning. Then on day 18 I plan to take them out of the cartons and lay them on their sides with the big end up. I have taken the turner (see my bator page) out to accommodate more eggs but I am also thinking that my turner allowed some eggs in a previous hatch to get warmer than others causing a rough hatch for some of the babies. I have also changed out my fan for a new one. It was originally direct wired into the system so that it would run continuously but it kept making a horrible sound. I bought a cheap 12 volt computer fan and a 12 volt ac-dc addapter and wired them together. Now the bator is much quieter. I also placed the fan lower in the bator and raised the heat source (60 watt light bulb) a bit. The temps became more uniform throughout and I am happier overall with the bator's performance.
Temps are steady and humidity is holding steady around 32. I just added water in the second tray to see if I could get that number up to 40. I may have to run a humidifier in the room to bring the humidity up even more during lockdown. I had originally set up the bator in the kid's bathroom but DH didn't like that. He suggested that his walk-in closet would be a better place for it.
I was on BYC the other night and showed him a lovely old Leahy Favorite Redwood Incubator that I was drooling over. He cut me a sideways glance and said "I suppose that is the next thing you want me to build?"
You see I have serious bator envy when I see some of these wonderful creations ya'll are producing.
Anyways, join me in the journey. It is going to be a LONG three weeks.
Do I need to let them sit for a while or can I just go ahead and load them up?
I have cut the bottoms out of the cups in the cardboard egg cartons I have and was planning to set them in there for ease of turning. Then on day 18 I plan to take them out of the cartons and lay them on their sides with the big end up. I have taken the turner (see my bator page) out to accommodate more eggs but I am also thinking that my turner allowed some eggs in a previous hatch to get warmer than others causing a rough hatch for some of the babies. I have also changed out my fan for a new one. It was originally direct wired into the system so that it would run continuously but it kept making a horrible sound. I bought a cheap 12 volt computer fan and a 12 volt ac-dc addapter and wired them together. Now the bator is much quieter. I also placed the fan lower in the bator and raised the heat source (60 watt light bulb) a bit. The temps became more uniform throughout and I am happier overall with the bator's performance.
Temps are steady and humidity is holding steady around 32. I just added water in the second tray to see if I could get that number up to 40. I may have to run a humidifier in the room to bring the humidity up even more during lockdown. I had originally set up the bator in the kid's bathroom but DH didn't like that. He suggested that his walk-in closet would be a better place for it.
Anyways, join me in the journey. It is going to be a LONG three weeks.
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