Incubators Anonymous

[Runawaylobster]

well I couldn't wait until sunday so I candled today.. Legbars have a few quitters but i'm still in the 65% ok range so hanging in there...

but the weirdest thing.. The lady at the feed store asked me for 10 bcm's I saved eggs but only have 2 laying so it was a slower process than i would have liked. At the last minute i freaked out worrying i wouldn't have enough and grabbed some that had been in the refrigerator for 10 days.. Would you believe it they are doing great!

Then i added some more 1 week later just to make sure.. and now yikes i found myself saving more to set tonight... I am so addicted..

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:
Turkeys are another matter... I don't like turkeys...

 

[ChickNmamma]

well I couldn't wait until sunday so I candled today.. Legbars have a few quitters but i'm still in the 65% ok range so hanging in there...

but the weirdest thing.. The lady at the feed store asked me for 10 bcm's I saved eggs but only have 2 laying so it was a slower process than i would have liked. At the last minute i freaked out worrying i wouldn't have enough and grabbed some that had been in the refrigerator for 10 days.. Would you believe it they are doing great!

Then i added some more 1 week later just to make sure.. and now yikes i found myself saving more to set tonight... I am so addicted..

I have been wondering about refrigeration and setting eggs. I have heard a lot of people hatching store bought eggs.. those are refrigerated and really old.. and they hatch. I once set refrigerated eggs.. and they all hatched (from my own birds, decided to hatch a few for fun many years ago).

I was also wondering because refrigerating the eggs makes the white stiffer.. and maybe that would actually HELP shipped eggs make it without being scrambled? The store bought eggs are transported but I don't think they are flown... its the airplane ride which is really tough on the eggs... but if they were thicker maybe it would help?

I like to wonder about things..

 

[wife2abirdman]

Ok I need some answers. I don't know whats going on this is my second batch of chicks that have piped their air cells but then died. It happened a couple of weeks ago on 5 Marans, now this week on my Polish. I had 6 eggs, 1 hatched one died before it piped and the other 4 piped their air cells but died before they piped the shell. I was trying to leave them alone so left them be. But all my other eggs were pipping and zipping. They were only due yesterday but with the problems I have had I wanted to see if they were still alive this moning, they weren't. I read that shipped eggs can have issues with positioning and with my last batch that did the same thing they did seem positioned wrong. Their beaks were facing towards the MIDDLE of the shell not towards the shell. When I opend these Polish eggs, to tell you the truth, I did not pay attention to where their beaks were. I did not open the incubator prior to this. The one Polish that did hatch hatched last night. I have other breeds in there as well which as far as hatching didn't do awesome but certainly better. On one hand I know I shouldn't have opened the incubator but on another all the chicks/eggs that died, died BEFORE I opened the incubator. I was quite suprised that all my Marans hatched on time I thought they would be 2 days late. I incubate in a genesis 1588 (I think it has the new digital screen) and I hatch in a LG still air. I have not tried hatching in a different incubator as I do not trust the humidity to stay steady like it does in the still air-although this time around the humidity seemed weirdly higher than normal. I tried to keep it at 65 but it stayed at 70, in the past month it has usually stayed at 63-67.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Ok I need some answers. I don't know whats going on this is my second batch of chicks that have piped their air cells but then died. It happened a couple of weeks ago on 5 Marans, now this week on my Polish. I had 6 eggs, 1 hatched one died before it piped and the other 4 piped their air cells but died before they piped the shell. I was trying to leave them alone so left them be. But all my other eggs were pipping and zipping. They were only due yesterday but with the problems I have had I wanted to see if they were still alive this moning, they weren't. I read that shipped eggs can have issues with positioning and with my last batch that did the same thing they did seem positioned wrong. Their beaks were facing towards the MIDDLE of the shell not towards the shell. When I opend these Polish eggs, to tell you the truth, I did not pay attention to where their beaks were. I did not open the incubator prior to this. The one Polish that did hatch hatched last night. I have other breeds in there as well which as far as hatching didn't do awesome but certainly better. On one hand I know I shouldn't have opened the incubator but on another all the chicks/eggs that died, died BEFORE I opened the incubator. I was quite suprised that all my Marans hatched on time I thought they would be 2 days late. I incubate in a genesis 1588 (I think it has the new digital screen) and I hatch in a LG still air. I have not tried hatching in a different incubator as I do not trust the humidity to stay steady like it does in the still air-although this time around the humidity seemed weirdly higher than normal. I tried to keep it at 65 but it stayed at 70, in the past month it has usually stayed at 63-67.

I don't know what to tell you. Were these all Polish eggs? and the ones a couple of weeks ago were Marans but the Marans hatched this time (with the higher humidity)? If the others are all hatching I would guess it is something to do with the chicks themselves - usually when something is wrong on the incubator nothing will hatch (or only roosters..). Maybe you can ask on the Polish thread to see if you have to do anything different with their eggs - if they are more fragile or something? Did you do the weighing the eggs to check for proper moisture loss? I think that's the best way to check for proper incubation, and it is something I am going to do with all my eggs this time (first time using shipped eggs).

The only other thing that comes to mind is maybe the air is blocked? Was the incubator moved from the last hatch, is there plenty of airflow into the incubator so the CO2 doesn't get too high? The higher humidity wouldn't help the oxygen level, sometimes if the humidity goes too high it will cause problems also. So these never pipped their shell? Perhaps these are the ones that would benefit from the pinhole in the top of the aircell.. so they have a bit more air inside before they get out... Just throwing out some ideas..?

 

[wife2abirdman]

I don't know what to tell you. Were these all Polish eggs? and the ones a couple of weeks ago were Marans but the Marans hatched this time (with the higher humidity)? If the others are all hatching I would guess it is something to do with the chicks themselves - usually when something is wrong on the incubator nothing will hatch (or only roosters..). Maybe you can ask on the Polish thread to see if you have to do anything different with their eggs - if they are more fragile or something? Did you do the weighing the eggs to check for proper moisture loss? I think that's the best way to check for proper incubation, and it is something I am going to do with all my eggs this time (first time using shipped eggs).

The only other thing that comes to mind is maybe the air is blocked? Was the incubator moved from the last hatch, is there plenty of airflow into the incubator so the CO2 doesn't get too high? The higher humidity wouldn't help the oxygen level, sometimes if the humidity goes too high it will cause problems also. So these never pipped their shell? Perhaps these are the ones that would benefit from the pinhole in the top of the aircell.. so they have a bit more air inside before they get out... Just throwing out some ideas..?

Yes the only ones in the hatcher to pip their aircells then die were the Polish the rest that died never even piped the air cells. No, the other 5 Polish never piped the SHELL. No the Marans eggs that hatched this time were from a different breeder. The hatcher was moved but only on the other side of the table(4' table) to get out of the sunlight. I have 11 chicks out of 30 eggs put into lockdown 6 of those being the Polish eggs.
Maybe the air flow is an issue like you say. Come to think of it I kind of altered the bottom inside so I could put some plastic coffee lids underneath the wire to get the humidity up. I will try and fix this issue before my next hatch and see if this does any good. Thank you so much for this, I bet this is the cuase for some of my problems!
I don't weigh the eggs, I am pretty new to hatching so don't know all the tricks. I will try and find a small scale and try this. I dry hatch also.

 

[ChickNmamma]

Quote:
Oh good, I am glad you could figure out something from my ideas.

I think you may be right about the lids causing lack of air to the eggs. Especially if they are blocking any of those air holes on the bottom. Many people do not realize the shells allow air to pass through - and if you don't have enough oxygen the chicks don't get enough to make the second pip. I have been reading a lot of threads about hatching shipped eggs and that came up in one of them. They said the oxygen is very important to the hatching chicks, and too high humidity or not enough oxygen around the eggs can cause problems. They were describing the internal pip/not external pip deaths.. so that's why I mentioned it. It came up more as a problem in the still-air incubator/hatchers too. The forced air ones had problems with shrink-wrapping...

You could try using Tupperware containers for humidity instead of the coffee lids? If you take a very small Tupperware container and cut a little slot in the top - stick a piece of sponge in the water with the end out (like a lamp wick) and fill it with water it will wick the water out slowly and keep the humidity constant without blocking the airflow..

I haven't hatched shipped eggs before, so I weighed them and marked them this time and will be watching them closely. I used to use a Hova-bator years ago but I can't use it where I live now (see signature line)... I used to hatch my own eggs, never needed any "tricks" like weighing or marking them before. I am amazed I used to get as good hatches as I did without knowing anything (usually 75% to 99%). Probably being in Santa Barbara with the ocean humidity and the wonderful weather helped too..

On my first test batch of eggs in this new cabinet I dry incubated, mostly because the first two weeks I misread the temp/humidity gauge in there as being 76% but found out it was a faulty LED screen and it was actually 16%.. I could only ever get it up to 60% for the hatching - and all the eggs hatched..

I was worried because it seemed too low at hatch, so I kept putting water in the pressboard egg cartons I was using to hatch them in every time I took out the hatched chicks, to bring the humidity up around the eggs. They started hatching on the 18th day and finished hatching on the 21st day. I think maybe the incubator was running just a touch hot... but no shrinkwrapped chicks..

for a better hatch of your next ones!

 

[ki4got]

IA....Help!!!! Have incubator and eggs...Must incubate!!!!
no joke, really
sounds like a brag but i do need serious help, i keep telling myself i'm hatching in order to grow my laying hen numbers for particular breeds, just how many laying hens does one really need to grow the flock? to improve the line? to have enough nice culls to sell to cover some of the expenses?

if you never hear from me again...i'm either glued to the incubator counting the days until The day or dh buried me under one of the chicken tractors lol

happy hatch day to all)

if it helps, i've been told that to find 2 or 3 exceptional birds, you have to hatch about a hundred...

is that the answer you wanted to hear?

 

[ozexpat]

Ok I need some answers. I don't know whats going on this is my second batch of chicks that have piped their air cells but then died. It happened a couple of weeks ago on 5 Marans, now this week on my Polish. I had 6 eggs, 1 hatched one died before it piped and the other 4 piped their air cells but died before they piped the shell. I was trying to leave them alone so left them be. But all my other eggs were pipping and zipping. They were only due yesterday but with the problems I have had I wanted to see if they were still alive this moning, they weren't. I read that shipped eggs can have issues with positioning and with my last batch that did the same thing they did seem positioned wrong. Their beaks were facing towards the MIDDLE of the shell not towards the shell. When I opend these Polish eggs, to tell you the truth, I did not pay attention to where their beaks were. I did not open the incubator prior to this. The one Polish that did hatch hatched last night. I have other breeds in there as well which as far as hatching didn't do awesome but certainly better. On one hand I know I shouldn't have opened the incubator but on another all the chicks/eggs that died, died BEFORE I opened the incubator. I was quite suprised that all my Marans hatched on time I thought they would be 2 days late. I incubate in a genesis 1588 (I think it has the new digital screen) and I hatch in a LG still air. I have not tried hatching in a different incubator as I do not trust the humidity to stay steady like it does in the still air-although this time around the humidity seemed weirdly higher than normal. I tried to keep it at 65 but it stayed at 70, in the past month it has usually stayed at 63-67.

Shipped eggs are often problematic but your symptoms appear like high humidity during the first 18 days. Chicks that pip internally and die often do so because the aircell is too small and the chick, because they are "wet" are much bigger. It can also explain the beak in the middle as they simply have no room to position correctly.

What humidities are you running in the HB Genesis during the firt 18 days?

What is the hatch rate on local versus shipped eggs using your current technique.

To really get to the core of the problems, you may need to weigh the eggs and see whats happening.

My first hatch in high humidity was 50% on eggs I carried on a plane. I thought I had it worked out. The second was a bust. It was devastating. Next hatch will have a dehumidifier in the incubator to keep the humidity at 30%. My findings are that shipped eggs are more sensitive to higher humidities as saddling occors - distorting the call shape.

I hope this helps

good luck

 

[KKs Kandies]

if it helps, i've been told that to find 2 or 3 exceptional birds, you have to hatch about a hundred...

is that the answer you wanted to hear?

Oh, that's it! Thanks! I now have over 100 chicks, they're cute but...looks like we're improving but no real winners yet.
This is a good life lesson, if you want something close to the best you must begin with the best available or wait (not my strong suite)

Thanks for the replies, helpful, fun and interesting.