The 5th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[chicken pickin]

Today is supposed to be our first day since October of hitting 60 degrees! I CAN'T WAIT!! Although I can also do without all the "yuck". UGH. We are going to take our hockey rink down today too. So that will add even more mush. I'm sure the dog will be a sloppy wet mess. Oh well - the great weather should keep me busy so I won't check on my eggs every 10 minutes

Oh BOY the dogs. Mine come in full of mud all over their bodies ewwwwww gross lol. And I don't even want to get started on the dogs area after this long harsh winter, its not pretty.

 

[LBKS]

Good morning fellow hatchers. Now that the incubators are stabilizing, I have a couple more questions. When I was running my incubator for my warm-up/pre-test, I managed to stabilize the temp at 99.5 and humidity at about 35%. Yesterday I added 41 eggs, and have had some changes. First of all, with no changes except the addition of the eggs, my humidity went up to 55%. I took out 2 of my 3 water cups, and that seems to be helping. Is it typical for eggs to add some of their own humidity?

Secondly, I have 3 thermometers in there, one of which is calibrated and spot on, the other two I tested in the incubator warm up, and know one reads high and one reads about right (the digital one). Anyway, I have one thermometer on top of the eggs, one in the bottom of the incubator, and one that is about mid-level. This morning the top one was reading 99.5. The mid level was reading about 97.5, and the bottom was 95.5. I have a fan going in there, but there still seems to be a temperature gradient. I am presuming that getting the mid-level thermometer to 99.5 would probably be a good target temp, even if the thermometer on top of the eggs reads a little high?

Thanks for all the great advice everyone!

Eggs do add some humidity of their own - the moisture that was inside the egg leaves through the membrane/shell and gets dispersed into the air raising the humidity while it enlarges the air cell.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Thank goodness for our new powerout alarm!! Wind is Terrible in the Mnts here!

IT WORKED and awoke us!!
We had generator running and bators and brooders back with power quickly as we had a previous run down of order since our last chaos with outage!
Not so sure how that would have ran if I had been by myself though

Temp at replug was 99.3 so I think it can take a tad longer loss.

GREAT CHEAP INVESTMENT!! Thanks @ozexpat

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121171985446?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

 

[mlm Mike]

Add me my eggs are set and ready to rock!

How many did you set?

 

[LBKS]

I leave for a wedding and you all post up a storm! But I came back to 4 more chicks hatched, so there is that going for me

I will be setting at least one of the incubators today. I think at last count I managed to bounce back up to 6 dozen eggs ten days or less in age. We'll see how many I can actually fit - I might try stacking just to say I tried it once. If they don't I'll have to figure something out, the eggs hatching now just aren't done yet.

Then I'll spend the rest of the weekend figuring out how to expand my brooder space.

 

[jbher]

Good morning fellow hatchers. Now that the incubators are stabilizing, I have a couple more questions. When I was running my incubator for my warm-up/pre-test, I managed to stabilize the temp at 99.5 and humidity at about 35%. Yesterday I added 41 eggs, and have had some changes. First of all, with no changes except the addition of the eggs, my humidity went up to 55%. I took out 2 of my 3 water cups, and that seems to be helping. Is it typical for eggs to add some of their own humidity?

Secondly, I have 3 thermometers in there, one of which is calibrated and spot on, the other two I tested in the incubator warm up, and know one reads high and one reads about right (the digital one). Anyway, I have one thermometer on top of the eggs, one in the bottom of the incubator, and one that is about mid-level. This morning the top one was reading 99.5. The mid level was reading about 97.5, and the bottom was 95.5. I have a fan going in there, but there still seems to be a temperature gradient. I am presuming that getting the mid-level thermometer to 99.5 would probably be a good target temp, even if the thermometer on top of the eggs reads a little high?

Thanks for all the great advice everyone!

My humidity shot up too!! It's my first time incubating... I wasn't expecting that. Despite how much I've read lol. I don't know if I should try and soak up some water with a paper towel or if I should leave it :-/

 

[Hayduke27]

My humidity shot up too!! It's my first time incubating... I wasn't expecting that. Despite how much I've read lol. I don't know if I should try and soak up some water with a paper towel or if I should leave it :-/

I put wet paper towels into little tupperware cups with holes cut in the lids. Somebody on here suggested it, and it makes it very easy to add and remove cups to adjust humidity. I would recommend soaking up all of your water and using these cups. They are very easy and inexpensive. I can post a pic if you like.

 

[mlm Mike]

Good Morning! Please keep the number set counts coming.


Not real amused this morning:

 

[PAchickenlover]

My chicks are getting big! They are just over a week old now. Wing and some tail feathers are coming in. I will post some pics of them soon. The other day I found myself in the dreaded TSC....... My duck eggs that I had set with my pre-hatch along hatch, didn't make it. So I was in at TSC and saw they had Pekin ducklings, I got three... Well you know you can't get just three birds from TSC so I looked at the chicks and they had some Banties. I picked out three of them and brought them all home. My hubby, lol, doesn't know frick from frack and thinks the ducklings were from the eggs I had in the bator, and the chicks, well he had no clue they were new either. I know I shouldn't deceive him but what he doesn't know won't hurt him right? Lol two of the chicks are lavender (I think) the other one is white with black splotches on it. (Will post pics soon) Anyhow I just had to spill the beans to someone... Thought you guys were the perfect group to spill to...

 

[jbher]

I put wet paper towels into little tupperware cups with holes cut in the lids. Somebody on here suggested it, and it makes it very easy to add and remove cups to adjust humidity. I would recommend soaking up all of your water and using these cups. They are very easy and inexpensive. I can post a pic if you like.

Unfortunately I have no room for cups in my bator :-( Under that mesh part is the water trough system. It's about 1" high at most... the tray that holds the eggs will move all the way to the right and left (as pictured) when it's turning.