well....here goes (1st timer)

[Rax77]

Brought home a Hova-Bator 1583 model saturday from the neighbors. He doesnt use it any more and said he would sell it to me for a fair price if i like it. It has an egg-turner in it, everything works great! I plugged it in and run it for 12 hours and it holds right at 99.5 to 100 degrees. Printed off the manual from the Hova-Bator website and filled the area with water as shown on manual. I set the eastern turkey eggs (8) point down in the turner about 11:30 Saturday night (had them setting for approx. 24 hours with out moving them....ordered them online)

My biggest concern is the humidty levels...or would u not worry too much about them? I did as shown in the manual but will this be good enough??? I check up on it frequently....and everything is holding great! The turner is working as well...

Another thing...what about candling? If this needs to be done, at what days do you do this??

Thanks for the help! -Scott

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

You want the humidity about 40 to 50% during incubation And about 60 to 65 during hatch. The thing with the humidity is if it's to high during incubation the egg won't draw down enough and the poult will drown when it pips, if it draws down to much it can't turn to pip the egg and can't get out. Doesn't your model have the water tray in the bottom? We used one before for doing waterfowl and "L" shaped tray was filled during incubation and then for hatch you filled another one.

I don't candle eggs until they stop turning. The more you keep the incubator closed the better off you will be in my opinion. I just do a sniff test for bad eggs, you can smell that rotten egg smell before they pop.

Steve

 

[Rax77]

yep...the "L" shaped tray is filled right now....the outer one gets filled during hatching...or so the instructions say. from what i read the humidity is not determined by the depth of water but by the surface area of the water....so they must have it figured out with the right sized water trays!..lol

ok...will not candle.....i will just sniff...

thanks!

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I think the biggest thing no matter what incubator you use is figuring out what works best for you. The instructions are guidlines to start with then you tweek from there.

Good luck on your hatch!

Steve

 

[MissCluck]

I had a duck egg go rotten on me and I waited just a leeetle too long to get it out of there. Picked it up and......POP!!!

Blech.