Incubation-do I have the steps right?

[Just some chicks]

@Just some chicks you live on the east coast like I do. Be very careful about adding water into that incubator. I hope you tested your incubator a couple days before you even put eggs in it so that you can see what the humidity is when it is dry without any water.

The East coast is a very humid area and I am sure that your houses humidity is almost like mine.

Yes I had it running for 3 days before and tested it. Without water it only read 23% humidity. My only question is, why does the humidity in the house matte If the incubator reads a certain percent? I don’t know how to word what I’m saying lol. I have it down to 45% humidity now just Incase. I know lower humidity is better than high. Just for added info, I am using the nurture right 360 incubator. Thank you!

 

[FortCluck]

That makes sense. It’s better to have the humidity slightly lower than higher. The breeder where I got my eggs, told me that running it 45-50% humidity is perfect. I’m keeping it closer to 45%. Where I live, it’s not humid at all. I have the nurture right 360 incubator. So far I love it. Thanks for the info!

It all depends on the heating that you are using in your house as well, I know up there that a lot of you have wood stoves and pellet stoves and such. Those types of heating dry out everything.

Down here we are still getting rain instead of snow!

I do my humidity less than 35% so that the eggs can lose what they need to lose and that the air cells will be perfect. At day 18 I go up to 50%.

The humidity that works for me might not work for you due to several factors. Incubating is something that you take information from others and use it the way you want then you can figure out what works for you.

Good luck with your hatch!

Look up Hatch a longs in the forums! You can keep everyone updated on your progress!

 

[Just some chicks]

It all depends on the heating that you are using in your house as well, I know up there that a lot of you have wood stoves and pellet stoves and such. Those types of heating dry out everything.

Down here we are still getting rain instead of snow!

I do my humidity less than 35% so that the eggs can lose what they need to lose and that the air cells will be perfect. At day 18 I go up to 50%.

The humidity that works for me might not work for you due to several factors. Incubating is something that you take information from others and use it the way you want then you can figure out what works for you.

Good luck with your hatch!

Look up Hatch a longs in the forums! You can keep everyone updated on your progress!

I don’t have a woodstove although I wish I did. I just have a regular furnace. Now I’m worried I have it too high. I know it’s trial and error. So far, there’s no condensation anywhere. I know if there was, I have it way too high. I’ll drop it a little more just Incase. Thank you for the info. I’ll definitely add to that forum

 

[FortCluck]

Yes I had it running for 3 days before and tested it. Without water it only read 23% humidity. My only question is, why does the humidity in the house matte If the incubator reads a certain percent? I don’t know how to word what I’m saying lol. I have it down to 45% humidity now just Incase. I know lower humidity is better than high. Just for added info, I am using the nurture right 360 incubator. Thank you!

The humidity in your house matters because The humidity and the incubator will get no higher than that unless you add water.

If my house is at 60% humidity, that means that I would not add any water because if I did the humidity in the incubator will get crazy high.

If the humidity in your house is 20ish%, it's okay to add some water. My house was 30% when I did my last hatch so I added no water and the incubator stayed at 30 ish %

Sorry just had a hawk in my chicken run it left with nothing and couldn't get out of the fencing.

 

[Just some chicks]

The humidity in your house matters because The humidity and the incubator will get no higher than that unless you add water.

If my house is at 60% humidity, that means that I would not add any water because if I did the humidity in the incubator will get crazy high.

If the humidity in your house is 20ish%, it's okay to add some water. My house was 30% when I did my last hatch so I added no water and the incubator stayed at 30 ish %

Sorry just had a hawk in my chicken run it left with nothing and couldn't get out of the fencing.

Ohhhh ok. Gotcha. I have to add water bc it was too low without it. My incubator has adjustments. I have reservoir A for days 1-18 and then fill A and B from 18-hatch day. It has an adjustment on the top to to find tune it. Glad to hear the hawk didn’t get one of your chickens. We’ve had a few hawks that watch my flock. I have an owl decoy but that only works so much. Thanks for the help and good luck with that hawk!!

 

[FortCluck]

Ohhhh ok. Gotcha. I have to add water bc it was too low without it. My incubator has adjustments. I have reservoir A for days 1-18 and then fill A and B from 18-hatch day. It has an adjustment on the top to to find tune it. Glad to hear the hawk didn’t get one of your chickens. We’ve had a few hawks that watch my flock. I have an owl decoy but that only works so much. Thanks for the help and good luck with that hawk!!

I think it was actually a falcon...

My incubator is the same thing where it has reservoir A & B.

It's the farm innovator 4250. I got it for a huge discount on Amazon one day and thought I would incubate my eggs.

I can't wait to see what your chicks look like!

 

[AstraChick]

i did my first hatching of shipped eggs, i now have 9 out of 10, 5 week old, health happy chicks running around.
I could not see much with the aircell when i received them also. i let them sit for 24 hours before i put them in the incubator. They say the fresher the egg, the smaller the aircell.
My incubator also has them on their sides and it wasn't untill day 7 when i candled that i seen all 10 with saddle/detached aircells. They spent 7 days rolling around on their side.
I read on here about setting them upright, so i cut out egg cartons for each egg to sit upright. Pic below of my set up...
I continued on but was only tilting them twice a day because it looked like all 10 aircell where detached and i thought by only tilting them slightly (slight lean to the inside, then slight lean to the outside of my round incubator) to try and get the aircells to settle. I actually ended up leaving them upright to hatch, i did end up turning 1 on its side and it had a hard time hatching and died 12 hours after it finally hatched.

I would also suggest to put a tick on the side of the egg at day 7 candling to mark the eye and do the usually makes of the aircell, although i didn't do anymore markings of the aircells after day 7 due to detached aircells but did more regular candling to watch aircell development, mainly because i had to turn off the egg turned and do manual tilting.
good luck with your hatching, for a high hatch rate
Keep us posted with you progress and cant wait to see your little chickies

 

[dougieee]

i did my first hatching of shipped eggs, i now have 9 out of 10, 5 week old, health happy chicks running around.
I could not see much with the aircell when i received them also. i let them sit for 24 hours before i put them in the incubator. They say the fresher the egg, the smaller the aircell.
My incubator also has them on their sides and it wasn't untill day 7 when i candled that i seen all 10 with saddle/detached aircells. They spent 7 days rolling around on their side.
I read on here about setting them upright, so i cut out egg cartons for each egg to sit upright. Pic below of my set up...
I continued on but was only tilting them twice a day because it looked like all 10 aircell where detached and i thought by only tilting them slightly (slight lean to the inside, then slight lean to the outside of my round incubator) to try and get the aircells to settle. I actually ended up leaving them upright to hatch, i did end up turning 1 on its side and it had a hard time hatching and died 12 hours after it finally hatched.

I would also suggest to put a tick on the side of the egg at day 7 candling to mark the eye and do the usually makes of the aircell, although i didn't do anymore markings of the aircells after day 7 due to detached aircells but did more regular candling to watch aircell development, mainly because i had to turn off the egg turned and do manual tilting.
good luck with your hatching, for a high hatch rate
Keep us posted with you progress and cant wait to see your little chickies


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This is pretty much the same as i did mine in May.
Considering i only slightly tilted them twice a day till day 18 the embreyos developed fine, which begs the question, if they can develop ok with so little movemewnt then why is it recommended that they are fully turned three times a day

 

[AstraChick]

This is pretty much the same as i did mine in May.
Considering i only slightly tilted them twice a day till day 18 the embreyos developed fine, which begs the question, if they can develop ok with so little movemewnt then why is it recommended that they are fully turned three times a day

i have read that the turning stops the embryos sticking to one side.
since i had detached aircells i only did the slight tilt twice aday and yes all embryos developed fine. but i did lay 1 on its side day 18 for hatching and it struggled to hatch and died 12 hours after hatch, it was first to pip and last to hatch.
My conclusion is shipped eggs need to be upright until hatched but that is just my experience and i have only done 1 with shipped eggs but got a 100% hatch rate.
In my past experience broody hen only got a 50% and my incubation from my own eggs got an 80% but all hatching are trial and error.

I sooooo miss my broody hen, best incubator hands down.

 

[Duckfarmer1]

I think it was actually a falcon...

My incubator is the same thing where it has reservoir A & B.

It's the farm innovator 4250. I got it for a huge discount on Amazon one day and thought I would incubate my eggs.

I can't wait to see what your chicks look like!

Ok, I ve been reading because I want to hatch eggs. I was hoping to hatch some of our own. Until this post, I didn’t want to ask, but is that possible to put my chickens eggs in an incubator? And, I’m guessing that as with any item, you get what you pay for...is there a mid-priced incubator..maybe $75 that is good enough? Ok, sorry to but in on such an awesome thread!