- Feb 27, 2008
- 317
- 17
- 151
I just finished up my first hatch. I had a problem on day 22 mid hatch when there was 6 day olds still in the bator and one pipping. When the 7th finally came out the others were just brutal to him. Pecking constantly, intentionally jumping on him etc. Well i knew all to well from reading here opening the bator was taboo and would put the remaining eggs at risk so i didn't. Luckily it was night time at this point so i shut out all the lights which seemed to settle the rest of the chicks down and they left him alone until morning.
Anyhow now frustrated about the previous night and yet another egg pipping i decided i didn't want to take a chance on them beating up the 8th chick to hatch. So i needed to devise a plan to get the first six out before the 8th hatched so they wouldn't whoop his tail as well.
Here is what i did. I took 3 gallon sized zip lock bags, cut off the zipper and split them along the seams to open them up making a larger single thickness sheet of plastic. (bigger pieces of plastic would have been better so you could open the bator further but its all i have available at the time)
Then i taped one to each side of the bators lid just above the seam to allow for as much plastic as possible to hang down. Then i tucked the remaining length UNDER the bator so that the plastic was snug on the sides.
I then taped the 3rd piece to the front of the bator letting it hang free and cut a slit into it up the middle that allows you to reach in through to grab chicks/eggs/whatever. I also tucked the remaining length under the bottom of the bator as well however it did need to be a longer piece in the end so that it stays tucked in while opening. I will make that change next time as i will have something besides ziplocks on hand to make the curtains.
Once everything is in place and you are ready to go just lift the top of the bator from the front only allowing the back to rest in its original place (thus no need to put a curtain on the back as there will be no gap showing there) Reach in through the slit, grab your desired chick/object and remove. Close bator and your done. Having the sides tucked under allows the curtains to remain taught while you lift the lid. The curtains only pull out from under the bator enough to allow you to open the lid and the weight of the bator sitting on them keeps them from coming completely free and cause air infiltration from the outside which would severely drop humidity and temp levels.
In doing this i had the bator open for 3-4 minutes to catch all 6 of the beasts and lost only 6% humidity and 1 degree in temp, not much and the beautiful part of it was that within 5 minutes the temp was back to normal and the humidity was back to within 1% of where it was before i opened it. I looked another 5 minutes later and the humidity was back to the same level prior to opening as well.
I hope some of you guys can use this trick that i came up with so that if you have to, you can intervene mid hatch without having to worry so much about critical loss of heat and humidity and the resulting ill effects on the remaining hatch because of that loss.
Anyhow now frustrated about the previous night and yet another egg pipping i decided i didn't want to take a chance on them beating up the 8th chick to hatch. So i needed to devise a plan to get the first six out before the 8th hatched so they wouldn't whoop his tail as well.
Here is what i did. I took 3 gallon sized zip lock bags, cut off the zipper and split them along the seams to open them up making a larger single thickness sheet of plastic. (bigger pieces of plastic would have been better so you could open the bator further but its all i have available at the time)
Then i taped one to each side of the bators lid just above the seam to allow for as much plastic as possible to hang down. Then i tucked the remaining length UNDER the bator so that the plastic was snug on the sides.
I then taped the 3rd piece to the front of the bator letting it hang free and cut a slit into it up the middle that allows you to reach in through to grab chicks/eggs/whatever. I also tucked the remaining length under the bottom of the bator as well however it did need to be a longer piece in the end so that it stays tucked in while opening. I will make that change next time as i will have something besides ziplocks on hand to make the curtains.
Once everything is in place and you are ready to go just lift the top of the bator from the front only allowing the back to rest in its original place (thus no need to put a curtain on the back as there will be no gap showing there) Reach in through the slit, grab your desired chick/object and remove. Close bator and your done. Having the sides tucked under allows the curtains to remain taught while you lift the lid. The curtains only pull out from under the bator enough to allow you to open the lid and the weight of the bator sitting on them keeps them from coming completely free and cause air infiltration from the outside which would severely drop humidity and temp levels.
In doing this i had the bator open for 3-4 minutes to catch all 6 of the beasts and lost only 6% humidity and 1 degree in temp, not much and the beautiful part of it was that within 5 minutes the temp was back to normal and the humidity was back to within 1% of where it was before i opened it. I looked another 5 minutes later and the humidity was back to the same level prior to opening as well.
I hope some of you guys can use this trick that i came up with so that if you have to, you can intervene mid hatch without having to worry so much about critical loss of heat and humidity and the resulting ill effects on the remaining hatch because of that loss.
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