A question for high altitude incubating

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

Howdy everyone!

I'm getting ready to set my shipped Silkie eggs this coming week. I've previously used the approx 12% decrease in egg weight (per an article I found here a few years back). After brushing up on things here in preparation for this year's hatching, I've seen numbers as high as 17%... eek!

So, my question is if y'all in the 6,500ft range have a target that works well. In the past, hatching my own eggs, I tend to have early by 1 day hatches (especially the Silkies).. unsure if that is a function of bantam eggs, too high of heat (unknowingly) or the weight loss factor.

Any help is greatly appreciated and Happy Sunday!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The early hatch is mostly due to egg size or possibly inaccurate thermometers and thermostats.
At that elevation, you shouldn't have any problem achieving 16-17% weight loss.

 

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

The early hatch is mostly due to egg size or possibly inaccurate thermometers and thermostats.
At that elevation, you shouldn't have any problem achieving 16-17% weight loss.

It might be the small eggs.. even after the thermometer calibration it still happens that I’ll get early Silkie hatches.. but not every single Silkie egg. Hmmm.. I’m betting it’s the egg size on that puzzle piece.

So am I hearing (ok, seeing) that I should be aiming for higher weight loss than I was using?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I usually go by 0.7% loss per day. Maybe I should change that to 0.65%.
I normally don't look this stuff up, I just retrieve from my old memory banks.

https://www.pasreform.com/en/knowledge/86/optimal-weight-loss-profiling-during-incubation

https://www.thepoultrysite.com/arti...ery-practice-monitoring-egg-and-chick-weights