Too Early for Feb Hatch-A-Long Thread??

[The Christian chicken Man]

Yes I figured out how to do that before I started the hatch.

Ok great good job! What I've been doing is adding a piece of paper to the monitor display showing how much that it's off and when I record the data I compensate difference.

 

[BlueBaby]

Nice! I adore Marans. What else are you hatching? I’m already plotting what to put in next.

18 B/B/S Naked Neck's, 6 Black Copper Maran's from the shipped egg's if they all arrive in good shape. If I add some of my own from my Naked Neck flock, those will be different colors and feather pattern's of them. I think this is going to be my biggest hatch for this year. I still have 6 chick's in the house that I have to move outside yet.

 

[FortCluck]

You know, speaking about adding water to raise the humidity, I have never heard of a sitting broody hen adding water when she hatches her chick's naturally.

I've always wondered that too because if it was a duck I could see humidity rising and such. But to me there's no spike in humidity or whatnot on day 18 when you have a broody.

So I'm unsure where they got the idea of you having to even have a certain humidity and why they think on day 18 you should increase it because I have found the opposite true.

My first hatch I did do it by the book with the water and I just had problem after problem.

All my other hatches since then I have not added any water and my chicks have had an easier time hatching, they are more alive and alert when they come out, none of them have been attached to the membrane, none of them are sticky and gross.

I honestly think us humans overthink things and we try to figure it all out in this world, but I think we need to realize that we never will

 

[FortCluck]

18 B/B/S Naked Neck's, 6 Black Copper Maran's from the shipped egg's if they all arrive in good shape. If I add some of my own from my Naked Neck flock, those will be different colors and feather pattern's of them. I think this is going to be my biggest hatch for this year. I still have 6 chick's in the house that I have to move outside yet.

I have 17 chicks that I need to move outside! My husband said that they're starting to get crazy inside their box

 

[FortCluck]

Ok great good job! What I've been doing is adding a piece of paper to the monitor display showing how much that it's off and when I record the data I compensate difference.

I do the same thing.

A few days before I start my hatch I start up my incubator and I put the hygrometer and thermometer in. Then I see how far off the reading from the incubator is to the two calibrated instruments in the incubator.

I usually write them in my phone or in a notebook and then I keep it for the whole hatch so I know the difference.

It always amazes me that a new incubator can be so off

 

[The Christian chicken Man]

I do the same thing.

A few days before I start my hatch I start up my incubator and I put the hygrometer and thermometer in. Then I see how far off the reading from the incubator is to the two calibrated instruments in the incubator.

I usually write them in my phone or in a notebook and then I keep it for the whole hatch so I know the difference.

It always amazes me that a new incubator can be so off

I've got 3 basically identical all of the parts will swap out which is nice but they are cheap I try to have 3 temperature and humidity monitors in each one at different locations in the incubator that seems to work the best. But I calibrate them all first. Quality name brands are worth the extra money.

 

[The Christian chicken Man]

I've got 3 basically identical all of the parts will swap out which is nice but they are cheap I try to have 3 temperature and humidity monitors in each one at different locations in the incubator that seems to work the best. But I calibrate them all first. Quality name brands are worth the extra money.

Believe it or not there's a brand new incubator under all that styrofoam, the more insulated the better. There is a cheap thermometer at the top right of the photo it works ok but I've got 3 temperature and humidity combination monitors on the way to replace it. 3 besides the incubator gauges work best for me anyway and I would definitely recommend keeping a journal so that You can see exactly what went wrong or right. Hatching books really stress that and they are right, here's a sample from my long book.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Thank you so much. I am so grateful for your quick response. It was worsening from dragging the shell around so I quickly sterilized my scissors and snipped as close to the shell as I could. Faced my fear of opening the bator.

For future reference, when doing this it's good to also use sterilized tweezers to pinch it before snipping. It's not always necessary but occasionally the umbilicus is still holding blood so it's better to pinch as well just to be safe. Any of the remainder will dry up and fall off naturally. I have had some that are red enough that I decided to break the shell off around the little portion that was still attached rather than cut it because I could tell it would bleed a lot.

 

[FortCluck]

I've got 3 basically identical all of the parts will swap out which is nice but they are cheap I try to have 3 temperature and humidity monitors in each one at different locations in the incubator that seems to work the best. But I calibrate them all first. Quality name brands are worth the extra money.

Yeah I love the thermometer and hygrometer I use. They have always worked amazing with my hatches.

 

[FortCluck]

For future reference, when doing this it's good to also use sterilized tweezers to pinch it before snipping. It's not always necessary but occasionally the umbilicus is still holding blood so it's better to pinch as well just to be safe. Any of the remainder will dry up and fall off naturally. I have had some that are red enough that I decided to break the shell off around the little portion that was still attached rather than cut it because I could tell it would bleed a lot.

There wasn't blood in the umbilicus though so that's why I didn't recommend it.

The one that I did on the little black chick had blood, but I still cut it didn't use tweezers but I did take a little corn starch and dabbed it at the end of the umbilicus.

Ever since I started dry hatching I haven't had that issue again. I'm telling you dry hatching has solved so many of my problems, but maybe it's just luck. I don't know but whatever dry hatching is doing for my hatches works.