My first hatching experience Farm Innovators Model 4200 Pro Series (Pictures)

[MusaedQ8]

Hello
First, I would like to thank the forum, I have learned a lot of things here
My English is bad, forgive me
I have a chicken 10 years ago, and I am having difficulty to make the hen to go broody
So I thought of buying incubator
I have no experience in that
I went to the Amazon
And found:
Farm Innovators Model 4200 Pro Series Circulated Air Incubator with Automatic Egg Turner

Pros:
41 eggs
Automatic egg turner
Fan kit
Price

I've read some bad reviews especially in build in thermometer hygrometer, I said I want to try it

April 1, 2013
order shipped

April 4, 2013
Received

I had 6 eggs, and asked my friend some eggs, gave me 16 eggs total 22

April 7, 2013 6pm
Place the 22 eggs
Temperature 99.5 (build-in thermometer)
Humidity 55% (build-in hygrometer)

April 8, 2013
I bought digital thermometer placed inside incubator
Temperature 99.5 (build-in thermometer)
Temperature 100.5 (digital thermometer)

I reduce the temp to read as follows:
Temperature 98.5 (build-in thermometer)
Temperature 99.5 (digital thermometer)





April 10, 2013
I bought dial hygrometer and thermometer to make sure the humidity
placed inside incubator
RH 50% (build-in hygrometer)
RH 42%(dial hygrometer )

April 11, 2013
I've calibrated dial hygrometer
reads 72% instead of 75%




build-in hygrometer off by 11%
Reads 64% instead of 75%


April 14, 2013 (day 7)
Candling
7 eggs unfertilized (not removed)
13 In progress
2 dark

April 25, 2013 (day 18) lockdown
7 eggs removed (unfertilized)
Egg turner removed
sponge added
Humidity increased 65%-70%

I've broken unfertilized eggs to see









April 26, 2013 (day 19)
at 11pm
egg has started pipping and rocking





April 27, 2013 (day 20)
at 8am
nothing

at 5pm
WOW!
3 hatched




between 5pm to 8pm
3 more hatched





at 11pm
1 hatched




at 11:45 pm
1 hatched 1 pipped 5 eggs no sign




i didn't remove chicks

April 28, 2013 (day 21)

between 2pm to 5pm
1 hatched


at 9pm
took 9 chicks out

April 29, 2013 (day 22)
at 4am
took last chick out
5 eggs nothing at all


First one hatched lol (my son)





Brooder




after 2 days i took 5 eggs out candles and broke to see

egg number 1





egg number 2





egg number 3





egg number 4





egg number 5




anyone can explain what happened to eggs numbers 1 and 2 please? (I think it's Old eggs)

time to clean it





breeder pic
image date May 1, 2013




Chicks pics
image date May 2, 2013









oops sorry about that

















I have some questions
Is hatching considered early or it's normal?
I figured today that the digital thermometer off by 1 degree


Incubator :
pros:
hold temp and humidity very well
big windows
eggs turner

cons:
build-in thermometer hygrometer useless
hard to add water (solved)
I did same this pic
http://cdn.backyardchickens.com/4/44/4499fcf1_DSCF8178.jpeg
to avoid open incubator during lockdown

readings during incubation:
Temp: 99 - 100.2 f
RH: average 43%

readings during hatching:
Temp: 98.2 - 99.5 f
RH: 65%-73%

Hatch rate: 66.6%

Again forgive my English

 

[countrygoddess]

Wow! Great record-keeping and problem-solving! And for the record, I think your first hatch is the cutest of them all.

Pipping at day 19 with hatching at day 20 is early, but my temps/humidity have been just the same as yours (actually, I've had higher spikes) and my pipping has been at the end of day 20 or early on day 21 with hatching happening on day 21 and into early on the 22nd day. So I'm not really sure why yours happened earlier. They look like they didn't suffered for the early hatch, though; on the contrary, they look incredibly healthy and perfect!

I have two Little Giants, which are almost exactly like the Farm Innovators, except they don't have the thermometer/hygrometer. When I was using one with the turner and had it half-full of eggs, I had the worst time keeping the temperature at 99.5. Oh, for the record, I have a digital thermometer/hygrometer for each of my incubators. It's this one: http://incubatorwarehouse.com/incubator-remote-thermometer-hygrometer.html They're very accurate. Anyway, I kept getting spikes, once up to 101.1! And the room temperature hadn't changed at all. Now, I'm pretty much using my Hovabator Genesis for incubating (although it's having difficulties staying down at 99.5 now that it has been in the 80's outside, even though I keep the temp down around 70 - 75 in the room where it is. I just can't win!) and the LGs for hatching. They do a better job without the turner in them, for whatever reason.

So maybe I should have gotten a Farm Innovators! Thanks so much for your review. And by the way, your English is fine.

 

[MusaedQ8]

Hello countrygoddess
Thank you for the reply,You gave me a boost

I think temperature higher by 1 degree actual temp 100.5-101.5 I'm not sure

I hope someone, explain what happened to the unhatched eggs

 

[countrygoddess]

It's hard to tell through the plastic bags, but the first two look like they were either not fertile or for whatever reason they never began to develop. The others had embryos? Looks like? Again, hard to tell through the plastic bags. I have a book I've been using a lot while I've been doing all this incubating and hatching because this is my very first time. I've had some mid-development deaths and the book gives many reasons for this: temp too low or too high, humidity too low or too high, some kind of genetic problem that causes the chick not to be able to complete its development (lethal gene), poor diet in the hen/cock. So, basically, there's really no way to know exactly what happened. LOL

 

[AnimalTori]

Thought I start up this thread again, seems like y'all have had some success with this incubator.
I've just received one of the pro series circulated air incubator model 4200 from Farm Innovators, and I'm looking all over the place for whether or not I need to open the incubator and turn the eggs daily?
Thanks!

 

[why do birds]

We are on our first hatch. Using a Farm Innovators 4200 with the automatic egg turner. We have it placed upon the kitchen counter and are trying to hatch 8 of 9 eggs, as 1 is unfertilized. These are 1 sultan, 3 silkie, 4 sizzle. We calibrated the temperature with another thermometer. We also added an Accu Rite system with a wand we place into the incubator and it reads the temp and humidity more accurately. The monitor is in another room. This is what we used to obtain more accurate readings of humidity and temp. We maintained temp at 99-100 F continually. The reading on the Farm Innovator says 95 - 97 F but the accurate read is 99 - 100 F. The humidity on the Farm Innovator says 70% but the true read is only 35%. The humidity gage is way off. So don't trust them. The automatic egg turner does turn most of our teeny tiny eggs but a larger more stubborn one seemed to stay upright so when it gets to one side or the other I give the whole thing a gentle "jiggle" to make the eggs maximally turn. We never weighed our eggs. I'm hoping our guess is good and we're going into lockdown correctly. Lockdown for us began today. At this day, with candling we can see tiny impressions starting up into the air sacks on 3. There is little egg movement at this stage. We are attempting the egg carton hatch. About 1/2 of our eggs have large air sacks and beaks (?) moving up into them. About 1/2 of our eggs have smaller air sacks and no indentations. We hope we are giving each chick it's best possible chance to hatch. At this time, we have taken out the automatic egg turner, place the eggs with the air sacks at the top into the egg carton, and have a straw from where the red vent plugs are to the internal well. We adjusted the straw and cut it so it fits into the screen on the bottom and into the top. We use a Walgreens children's oral syringe, free from the pharmacy department, to add 5 cc of warmed Distilled Water into the central water well, per squirt. The child's oral syringe tip fits into the straw perfectly. We then close the ventilation hole with the red dot and check humidity. We are trying for about 50% at this time, and once we obtain a pip will increase to 65%. We are trying to give the eggs with the smaller air sacks a chance to loose more fluid. We did drop the temperature from 99F - 100F to about 98.8F - 99.5 F, as it recommends about 0.5 F drop. Will let you know how we do.

 

[why do birds]

Went into incubator 12/7 at 10 pm, hatched 12/27 at 2 pm. This sizzle looks to be a grey frizzle with black skin and 5 toes, it's fluffed up a bit more and it's looking like it has the frizzle gene. On day 19 we maintained humidity at about 52% to 60%, temp between 98F and 99F. To maintain humidity, we are warming water, and unplugging 1 red plug and inserting a straw and attaching a Walgreen's 5 ml (5 cc) oral syringe into the straw to direct the warm distilled water toward the center of the incubator without compromising the seal. As soon as this one hatched, within a couple hours, we removed ONE red plug. When the others hatch, we plan to remove the other red plug to assist with drying and to maintain adequate oxygenation. Been a fun project and will be even better if at least one is a hen and have fresh eggs someday.

 

[why do birds]

We started this project so that someday we could have little eggs but it's been so educational. We obtained only ONE incubator. We weren't expecting to have 1/2 air sacks large and 1/2 small. Some ready to pip, some not ready. We used the strategy to keep humidity lower. We had 3 successfully hatch. One, a Silkie egg, the middle egg in the photo, zipped and then stopped. I do believe that it was because the shell was too thick and also because the humidity did drop to 45% -yes I did fall asleep for 4 hours- and it may have dried out the outer membranes. Even the first born sizzle, Chicken Nugget, who was bouncing all over the place couldn't help this guy out of it's eggshell. Ultimately I do believe that the shell was simply too hard. We increased humidity to at least 65% and have 3 more eggs in there that haven't pipped, 1 silkie, 1 sultan, and 1 more sizzle. It would seem if circumstances were different, eggs traveled from Midwest to NY 1100 miles, in the winter, 1 incubator despite having different hatch stages, we would have had more hatch at the same time. We did get one Silkie so far, Beak A Poo, shown above, and the 2 Sizzles, Fredo and Chicken Nugget. All have 5 toes and all are black skinned, so very quality birds. Keeping fingers crossed that more do hatch.

 

[FlomatonsFlocks]

I just want to say I am impressed by your post and wish I had done the same with my Farm Innovations 4250. Alot of mediocre reviews, but I love mine so far! I also have 4 Pips on day 19 and wondered if that were too early. I am however, encouraged by your beautiful babies.