egg incubation troubles

[hedgerow pete]

i have borrowed a brinsea auto turn inc, from monty tom and we have found a source of cheap fertlised chicken eggs to play with.

so to all who know cause i dont whats wrong with the following

Temp 37.5C, room temp stable
auto turn is on

water added is 100ml to start a humidity at 40% and i then keep it topped up to stay at 40%

now i know at this time of year we are not going to have a fully working cockrel and they might not be as fertile as wanted but i can get information on every thing but the humidity as everyone seems to have many differing views.

so what and how do i keep the humidity right, whats normaly done by you lot

 

[madasafish]

When I hatched turkey and quail eggs, I had a small plastic baisin on water in the incubator - topped up every two to three days.. Surface volume about 5% of the floor area and holding about 250ml of water... and a rag in it with the bottom in the water and hung against a wall to increase humidity..

Humidity c 55%..65%
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/166/care-and-incubation-of-hatching-eggs

 

[hedgerow pete]

so am i running to dry , i thought it had to be to allow the air space to increase

 

[crazy_bull]

I have hatched 1,000's of bantam and pheasant plus virtually every other domestic poultry.

I have never worried about the humidity to much, i always aimed to have the air sack increase to between 1/4 and 1/3 of the egg, this was done by adding or removing trays of water in the bottom of the various incubators.

I have even had 95% hatch rate on bantams when the incubator ran dry for two weeks of the incubation (i forgot to tell the person looking after them to keep them topped up!)

But i suspect any problems with hatching will be as you have already said due to it being a bit early in the season and the old boy may not be firing on all cylinders.

 

[hedgerow pete]

it is that i can not find any ideas on humidity thats all, most of the books say the same temp etc, but no body goes into details with water.

but that said i am only playing as i would like to try later on this year to hatch some of my own chicken eggs and just want to play before hand first,, any other tips?

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Humidity should be about 55% and increased to 65% before they are ready to hatch. The increased humidity helps to soften the shell, which help them break out.

Brian

 

[hedgerow pete]

right at the moment i have the two water troughs semi filled up and i cant get the humidity above 40% if i was to add into the water tray a cloth to make the evaporation area more will that increase it?

 

[drstitson]

as above - 55 until you stop turning then 60-65.

try a piece of sponge in the water pot, or some other sort of wick.

 

[mhill20]

Good tip, is to spray luke warm water directly on to the eggs once a day to imitate the hen bird getting back on to the nest after early morning feed/toilet breaks.This works great for me when hatching guinea fowl and geese.

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Mark the eggs, write an X on one side and an O on the other. That way you can turn them all at the same time, then spray them with water to bring up the humidity as needed...

Brian

 

[drstitson]

"Mark the eggs, write an X on one side and an O on the other"

yet another person perpetuating this pointless advice - think about it - you only need an X on one side and nothing else - you go by presence/absence of symbol alone.

spraying eggs more usual for waterfowl (especially at late stages).

 

[Bee-Key-Pur]

Mark the eggs, write an X on one side and an O on the other. That way you can turn them all at the same time, then spray them with water to bring up the humidity as needed...

Brian

This what we did as kids and it worked and still does. We sprayed water on the eggs to maintain or increase the humidity.
As the doc says, an X only would work and yes, water foul do need more humidity.

Brian

 

[hedgerow pete]

thanks for the tips. i am not doing water fowl quite yet just plain chickens.so the thread average is 50% humidity durring the incubation and the last three days when we turn the cradle rocker off we then try to jack it up up to 60%

 

[Storm™]

God thats all a bit complicated innit? My friend just keeps them in her bedroom. Warm, humid and they hatch, she's always selling them. She's even hatched ones from a shop bought box of eggs. Free range organic apparently.

 

[dano41]

Hi Pete first thanks for all the videos keep them coming.Don't worry to much about humidity with hen eggs.A good thing to do is float the eggs in warm water body heat for a couple of mins last three days this softens the shell but you will see the eggs that are going to hatch kick from side to side this will give you an idea how many are going to hatch and is good fun for kids to see.Don't discard ones that don't move in the water I have had a very odd one of these hatch successfully.

 

[BKF Admin]

What machine is it ?

If its an Octogan 10 or other still air type then forget all about humidity and just run it dry.

I have lost count of the amount of hatches I have done with mine over the years.

I did try filling one of the water baths once just to see what happened and the chicks hatched out like a load of sn*t.

 

[hedgerow pete]

its the brinsea auto 20 with the auto turn cradle .

we are running two machines for the next trial, the proper dogs danglies brinsea and the hedgerow home made poly box joby with the self turning system( the wife has to move the brick from one side to the other side three or four times a day)

now i know how a new bee thinks when me and poly hive and hiver maker all give differant answers

so far we are looking at from dry to 50% in the first 18 days, even for my littlel brain cell thats confusing

 

[drstitson]

Hrp

if you do feel like some ducks our lovely muscovy duck eggs achieve a 90+% hatch rate and i could certainly provide you a batch.

 

[hedgerow pete]

for now i want to carry on playing with the chicken eggs to get it some where right but , the offer of eggs will be used later on, many thanks pete

by the way candled last night out of 12 we lost two from cracking and out of the 10 left 5 were clear, but i was expecting that we brought the eggs in january so mr rooster was a little cold me thinks

 

[hedgerow pete]

well today was D day we have had 4 out of 12 eggs hatch today and considering that ment the eggs were laid in january i dont think that was to bad my self.

we also have another 24 eggs in another incubator which i will candle and shift over to the better brinsea incubator tonight.

nothing fancy breeds wise just bog standard light sussex eggs. a friend can supply loads if i want to hatch out to practice with