⠀ DRY INCUBATING

[WVduckchick]

I did not add any water..

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

Wow that's pretty amazing. Congrats! and sorry about the one that didn't make it....

 

[elorraine52]

my humidity is holding at 30-35% with no added water, room humidity is 65-75%....lots of storms here....

 

[WVduckchick]

my humidity is holding at 30-35% with no added water, room humidity is 65-75%....lots of storms here....

My room humidity usually runs around 40-45%, and my bator will keep 30-35% pretty well with no water. We had some storms yesterday too and its been damp for a few days. I noticed it had jumped up to like 65% in the house! Bator went up to about 38-40. I hope it dries up outside today!

 

[elorraine52]

now room humidity has dropped to around 47%, in the bator it's barely holding 25%, is this OK? Today is day 7, guess I'll sniff around and see if any eggs smell bad, they are mostly Marans so......candling is out...

 

[StokesChickens]

Dry incubation works well here in eastern North Carolina. I always check air cells at day 7,10 and 14. If they are growing too fast, I add 2 or 3 ounces of water. This has only happened a couple of times when incubating in late winter or early spring when relative humidity was very low. There is an excellent article on dry incubation in the learning center.

 

[random1449]

I have been using this method for a couple years now. It still works and I like it a lot. I've been incubating and hatching coturnix quails for 2 - 3 years now. My first 2 batches I did horrible on. I got advice from a person who told me to have the humidity set to 60 - 65% and then lock down at 70 - 80% humidity. It was my first time incubating quail eggs, so I din't know much. After 18 days of ''I don't even know if I'm doing this right.''

2 out of 20 eggs hatched...

I was very disappointed from that day on. Even worse they were both males.

Then on my second batch was almost the same but forgot to add water in the incubator a couple days. Then it was 50% humidity, and I was like; "hmm... Close to 60%." Then when it came to the final 3 days... 15 out of 21 hatched.

I was very pleased. Then I came here a year ago and heard about this DRY incubating method. Then took it a try and had great results on my third batch. Now on my ninth batch, I have 42 eggs and hoping around 40 come out. But would be brilliant if 42 came out. I

dry incubation it's the best incubating & hatching method for beginners and for anyone who has been hatching out chicks.

 

[elorraine52]

...so I candled the eggs as best I could, and I think all are well, except for one that was obviously clear....humidity in room is 50% and in bator is 25%, do I need to add a teaspoon of water or no? Storms expected tonight/tomorrow....will prob. get more humid...

 

[jhall6293]

I am trying dry incubation this go 'round as my last hatch didn't go quite so well trying to keep up with humidity. We stay pretty damp around here this part of year anyway. I didn't invest much money in the eggs that are in the bator now, but 27 out of 32 have visible, active embryos, so that's already better than last time. These eggs came from two different breeders AND they were e-Bay eggs, so take that for what it's worth. We will see how it goes. I'm only on day 6, so there's a good bit of time left. I'm interested to see if this makes any difference. My parakeet was dry hatched (six years ago), why not bobwhite quail?

 

[elorraine52]

....well, it's lockdown day, I've taken the eggs out of the turner, placed them on the screen and added one channel full of water. I can't see into the eggs but none of them smell at all, so fingers crossed they do OK. Following the directions exactly for dry hatching 101, the humidity has been around 25% the whole time, while room humidity has been much higher. Hoping the one channel full of water is enough to bring it up enough...will let everyone know the results...

 

[elorraine52]

Help! Humidity only up to 38% with all channels full of water, what to do? What to do? Not really room for a wet sponge in there....room humidity is 60%+, IDK why it's not getting wetter in there, but the directions say NEVER TO OPEN THE INCUBATOR TILL DAY 23!!