time to build another incubator

[gpop1]

well the first chicks have started to hatch from the new incubator. It wasn't a good batch to run a incubator test but a neighbor heard I needed eggs for a test and was kind enough to drop some off.

The eggs had been refrigerated and were ice cold so I wasn't to hopeful but I thought there was nothing to loss by trying. 55 eggs, 25 had cracks due to refrigerator so they were not used. Day 10 I removed 6 non fertile. Day 13 I removed 2 early quitters, Day 18 I had to move some to the hatcher as they are internally piping (smaller eggs probably bantam ).

I have 6 chicks in the brooder so far and others that are piping now (day 21). Only one looks to be a late quitter so far. From the markings I wrote on the eggs there doesn't seem to be any pattern to hatch date or quitters but I will have to do a real test in the future. One great thing is the chicks are a complete mix of all sorts so every one is a surprise.


only thing to note about the incubator is that it uses a lot of water compared to the smaller wine cooler incubators I have built in the past. im guessing that the chamber is not air tight. The light in the back was annoying (turning on and off) but after a few days I didn't even notice it anymore.

 

[1coop2coop]

I would have to say that's not bad considering the condition of the eggs when you got them. My resultsfrom my second try 3 chicks. The 4th didn't look fertil, never got veins and chunked on day 4.

 

[1coop2coop]

Tomorrow they turn a week.

After the first try my wife was upset with me wastin eggs. Then she went to check on them the night before the hatch. One started piping and the other two were rocking. Then she got all excited. Now she wants me to hatch a bunch for Easter.

 

[gpop1]

I found a major problem with the hatcher and I lost a lot of fully formed chicks including some that were piping.

I did a eggtopsy and nothing looked wrong so that lead me to believe that I cooked the chicks late in hatch. (maybe a failed sensor)

I set up all the test equipment again and started to get weird results. The air temp is 99.5 but the contract temp on the tiles I added to the floor was 107+. Well that doesn't make any real sense until I thought about it.
The peltiers are blowing over the tiles so you would expect a small section of tile to be warmer next to the heater.(eggs are held in plastic trays further forward so this isn't normally a problem). I thought tile would be a reasonably poor conductor of heat so I never expected the tile to conduct heat across its whole surface.
During original testing this didn't show up as it seems to takes days for the tiles to store and transfer the energy across the whole tile.
The gaps where the shelf's slide in to the wine cooler originally probably made this worse as heat could travel under the tile.

I have now removed the tile and all of the temperature readings are now correct. I have no chicks ready to hatch so im going to run the hatcher a few days then add some eating eggs and measure there temp internally after a few days. Ive used the same design before and never had a problem so I never expected that by simple adding a tile floor it would make any difference. Live and learn I guess.

 

[gpop1]

Tomorrow they turn a week.

After the first try my wife was upset with me wastin eggs. Then she went to check on them the night before the hatch. One started piping and the other two were rocking. Then she got all excited. Now she wants me to hatch a bunch for Easter.

lol watch the chick maths once you start its hard to stop. Grats on your hatch