ok, scary times ahead

kelliecat · **Posted:** Wed Oct 17, 2012 5:42 pm

I am mainly posting to make sure I will be doing this right, but.....I have some fertilised eggs arriving next week, and for the first time, will be incubating them in my new incubator. So can I just check please......
I have bought a hygrometer with sensors that will accurately tell me the temp and humidity at egg level,
so,best temp is 37.5 degrees Celsius
humidity should be at 60% until day 18, then raise it to 80%.
I was told to candle at day 8 and at day 17, and then do not open the incubator at all until they all hatch.
I was also told that even though it is "semi auto turn" i should open the incubator for about 10 sec every day as this will mimic what the mum chook does and allow fresh air through the incubator...Should I do this??????

I am setting the machine up tonight with some dummy eggs to see how much water is needed to get the humidity right, as well as the temp, as I don't trust the machine.

Have I forgotten anything???????? Please tell me if I have as I am very new at this, and unfortunately mum got eggs that she reallllllly wanted (sigh), so the guilt level will be huge if they die because of something I have done.
thanks heaps, sorry to be a bother

doggo · **Posted:** Thu Oct 18, 2012 8:18 am

I suspect that no-one has replied because this whole subject is fraught and there are scores of contradictory opinions concerning the finer details.
For what its worth my view is that good quality eggs can allow a bit of latitude in temperature, turning, humidity etc. Eggs that are not as strong need a lot of pampering to hatch healthy chickens.
It is worthwhile ensuring that your temperature reading is accurate. As frequent turning as possible will help but I have got by OK in the past with twice daily turning.
The current view seems to be that lower humidity is better (search "dry hatching"); it certainly seems to be better in my incubators.
Each machine has its own peculiarities and owners of your model might be able to give you some pointers as to individual foibles.

enigma01au · **Joined:** Sun May 24, 2009 4:27 pm **Posts:** 11

Greetings Kelliecat,
I'm no expert, but I have hatched posted eggs a couple of times and had good results :-D

What sort of incubator do you have?
I use an RCOM 20. The instructions for it are to set the humidty at about 45%, and temperature at 37.5°C for the first 18 days, then you bump it up to 60% humidity.The RCOM has auto turn, which I set to move the eggs every hour, by 180°.
You can candle the eggs to check the size of the air sac. This is the best indication of whether you need to up the humidty, or turn it down. Just search this website and there should be diagrams of how the air sac should look.
I candle my eggs everyday after day 3, until the eggs go down into "lockdown" for the last 3 of days.

It really is quite easy. Don't stress so much. It's amazing how much the eggs can put-up with and still hatch

Hope this helps....
Cheers, Kath

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