⠀ DRY INCUBATING

[MountainMarans2012]

I hear others talking about dry incubating and wanted to know what it meant ?

 

[WVduckchick]

It means adding NO water to the incubator, just getting humidity from the air and eggs themselves. Works well in areas of naturally higher humidity.

 

[DrMikelleRoeder]

Given that humidity requirements are different for eggs from different species and even change for eggs of the same specie as they develop, using a traditional incubator is probably a more reliable way to hatch eggs for most of us.

 

[duluthralphie]

After 2 unsuccessful attempts to hatch last year conventionally, I went to a dry hatch and had great success..

Just open the vents in the incubator and watch the eggs.

 

[DrMikelleRoeder]

I am glad you had good success. It is such a fun event to observe! It would never have worked where I used to live. Sometimes the humidity there was as low as 7%!!

 

[mymilliefleur]

I'm dry incubating right now since we are in the ''rainy season'' here and the humidity is 65% with out water. I'm very curious to see how it goes.

 

[elorraine52]

I'm dry incubating right now since we are in the ''rainy season'' here and the humidity is 65% with out water. I'm very curious to see how it goes.

how did your hatch go? I've set eggs using the dry method this week (Mon.) the bator read 16% before I put the eggs in, now reads 32%, the room humidity is 70%. No water in the bator, it's an LG with a turner and a fan installed. These are mostly Marans eggs, with a few blue and splash Ams.

 

[duluthralphie]

I have to be honest here. I just finished a hatch. I used the dry method and it went well, EXCEPT, the hatch got spread out. I have no idea why, but there was 4 days of hatching. The last two chicks to hatch were dry, one never did fluff up and died.

I have been experimenting with my empty hatcher, I will continue to dry hatch, but I am now going to add a small pill bottle of water to the hatcher, which brings the hatcher up to 50%. If the hatch had been shorter I would not have the problem.

 

[WVduckchick]

I have to be honest here. I just finished a hatch. I used the dry method and it went well, EXCEPT, the hatch got spread out. I have no idea why, but there was 4 days of hatching. The last two chicks to hatch were dry, one never did fluff up and died.

I have been experimenting with my empty hatcher, I will continue to dry hatch, but I am now going to add a small pill bottle of water to the hatcher, which brings the hatcher up to 50%. If the hatch had been shorter I would not have the problem.

Did you not ever add any water? Not even in the last 3 days? I believe most folks who dry incubate still increase the humidity during the last days.

 

[duluthralphie]

I did not add any water..

The humidity went to 75% when they started to hatch...