Incubator Help

[morton 5,367]

A chicken is 21 days incubation

Pheasants are 24 days incubation. I wish I could rear My pheasants as easy as my gamefowl. I talking from experience that's all. Facts not fiction of a poultry site. The R-com comes with a guide of setting 45% 18 days 65% last 3 days. I played about with my incubators and got better results alter it. Hence why I quoted he wouldn't benefit dropping it.

Id advise him again to source the names i mentioned earlier,he can then confuse himself a tad more than the rest of us are trying to.I gained my incubation experience from a source other than a poultry one,the poultry one set incubation standards that are yet to serve better practice at incubating poultry eggs,R.Harvey took that to another level,with his incubation practice and not his commercial interests as you get that confused.Rearing as nothing to do with hatching.You have gone from 70 to 65 in a few posts,consistency is good incubation practice,inconsistency,especially in humidity,can still serve good practice,i prefer another approach that as served its time with different incubators and avian egg types.The chicken is a member of the Pheasant family and there are slight variations in hatch rates across the family,still set at the same temperature and humidity levels though,preferably.

Edited April 24, 2016 by morton

[burnie69 376]

The only person your confusing is yourself pal. I've eggs hatching every week Gamefowl and Pheasants. My Gamefowl is my hobby my pheasants are my job. If you read my post properly instead of rushing through them so you can reply. You'll see where I said R-com's come with a guide line of last 3 days 65% . Through trial and error I got better results upping mine to 70%.

[morton 5,367]

The only person your confusing is yourself pal. I've eggs hatching every week Gamefowl and Pheasants. My Gamefowl is my hobby my pheasants are my job. If you read my post properly instead of rushing through them so you can reply. You'll see where I said R-com's come with a guide line of last 3 days 65% . Through trial and error I got better results upping mine to 70%.

Again Gamefowl are Pheasants,again a variance in incubation practice will still give a variance in hatch rates,no matter the incubator and i dont need the luxury to rush through inconsistent posts to give a consistent response.Ill still stick to my earlier advice and try and get the poster to source info from a Good Poultry site or R.Harvey,they have the expertise in the field,my limited experience comes from working in an environment that promoted the breeding of some of the worlds most endangered Avian species and being in control of the incubation process that went with that,be that Pheasant,over a dozen species,waterfowl,over 2 dozen species,Parrots,Cranes,Emus,Flamingos,Doves and Pigeons,especially Mauritius Pinks,Starlings,especially Bali,s and numerous other bird species.An incubation room set up with 7 different incubators, many of then set different to its neighbour.Im easily confused.

[burnie69 376]

You better get to bed then. Night night

[morton 5,367]

You better get to bed then. Night night

Ill still waken confused.

[burnie69 376]

Your trying to give a lad advice on a incubator you know nothing about . I've 2 sat in the garage working great and your questioning my advice. Then you post saying a pheasants a chicken. Ffs pal surely I should be confused.

[MoChara 1,600]

Burnie69 is spot on.. Once day 18 comes I up the Humidity, if it ever dropped below 55-60 the chicks died in shell.

 

Day 18 "lockdown" is the main/harder bit of hatching for me, temperature aside.. I strictly sit on my hands and don't open the bator till hatch day as it will let humidity escape and I'll end up with chicks stuck or unable to pip/zip.

 

But I'm lucky I've just had two successful broody hatches in the hedge lol.

 

But will be doing ayam cemanis in next week or so, there too dear to wreck by bad incubating skills

[Mr Wasp 187]

I dunno where you guys have got your info from, but...

 

Humidity has nothing to do with the hardness of the egg shell.

As a chick grows in the egg, it takes calcium from the shell to help with bone growth. So at the point of hatch, the shell is much thinner than it was before incubation started.

The reason why a higher humidity is used during hatching is help lubricate the chick and stop it from sticking to the shell membrane.

 

45% humidity during incubation is too high. We used to aim for 30% or as near as we could get. Waterfowl higher.

 

Again humidity does nothing to aid a chicks growth, but it dertermines the size of the chick. This is due to how much evaporation has occurred during incubation. Too high a humidity % = not enough evaporation = chicks which are too large to hatch.

 

I bet you fellows could run your machines dry (up until hatching) and get better results than you are.

[burnie69 376]

Proof is in the pudding 47 chick's outta 53 eggs today.

[budharley 945]

I bought myself a hygrometer it seems my humidity is only out by 2%

[Mr Wasp 187]

I reckon your meter is broken.

 

This is the one in my incubator, its not switched on at the moment.

 

 

Cant beat the old Curfew bators

 

[budharley 945]

I've just tested it with a second hygrometer I bought for my dads it's the same incubator reading reading 40 hygro 38

[Rabid 1,936]

I been struggling the first few weeks this year, so....

 

After advice I got on here I dropped the humidity, I now put no water in the setter at all, I have bought a separate hatcher and when I transfer the eggs at day 18 into the hatcher I fill with water, my hygrometer is reading between 65-70%

 

Last week I hatched 64 chicks from 64 fertile eggs, one died at two days old.

 

The week before I hatched 49 chicks from 51 fertile eggs, none died.

 

Prior to this I was adding water to the incubator and was lucky if half the chicks hatched/survived, I think that says it all, add no water for the first 18 days.

 

Mr wasp, your right pal, my new hatcher is a curfew, and I also have the matching incubator, older than yours though, how many eggs does your hold, and do you know the rough age ?

 

I would be interested where you lot get your hygrometer/thermometers from, I have tried 5 now, and every one reads different ! Can they be calibrated So you know they are right, I bough a supposed 'medical' incubator thermometer and that reckoned my incubator was running at 39.6 degrees ! So I am very dubious about them as all my chicks should be dead !

[Mr Wasp 187]

From memory, I think that one holds around 400 pheasant eggs. I still have a brinesea hatchmaster A

That holds about 200 chicken eggs. Only used it as a hatcher.

 

Both were bought new around 25 years ago.

 

Your humidity will change daily, so don't worry about percise readings, you just want to know it's in the right area and not way too high in the incubation period.

I honestly don't know why folk just chuck water in when our ambient humidity is around % anyway.

If anything, they should be buying de-humidifiers and trying to dry the air out.

If a chick is to big at point of hatch it can't turn in the egg and will die.

 

Anyway, food for thought.

Makes me keen to fire them up and start hatching again.

[Rabid 1,936]

From memory, I think that one holds around 400 pheasant eggs. I still have a brinesea hatchmaster A

That holds about 200 chicken eggs. Only used it as a hatcher.

Both were bought new around 25 years ago.

Your humidity will change daily, so don't worry about percise readings, you just want to know it's in the right area and not way too high in the incubation period.

I honestly don't know why folk just chuck water in when our ambient humidity is around % anyway.

If anything, they should be buying de-humidifiers and trying to dry the air out.

If a chick is to big at point of hatch it can't turn in the egg and will die.

Anyway, food for thought.

Makes me keen to fire them up and start hatching again.

Agreed, I have been checking humidity and my house is higher than average, (I knew that as we are dealing with all the damp problems slowly) so I add no water until day 18, it has really helped my hatch rate. (I do have a dehumidifier but don't think things are that bad just yet !)

 

I had extra large chicks the first couple of weeks and they couldn't pip properly and died, now they are doing it all themselves.

 

Ps, if you don't use the curfew I would love to buy it, the two I have are excellent.