| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| GSHP |
Incubators........ where do you place yours?I have been wandering around the house trying to find a suitable place to put it next year. I have decided the youngest son's bedroom is probably the best place, North facing, therefore constant temp. with little light. Only he won't move out ! This year it was in the garage, which is built into the hillside, so regular temperature and little disturbance. Only the hatches weren't that great ( other factors also invovled) and it's a little way from the house. So where is the most successful position you have found for your incubator ? |
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| chicken feed |
 i have a set up in the garage i run 2 - 3 incubators at a time the candle box is on the same bench i have tried placing the incubator all over but this is the 2nd year in the garage with around 90% hatch rate
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| Castle Farm |
Site of incubation is only one of the many factors in hatching.
A constant temperature and humidity is a great help. The fitness of the breeding stock and time of year. Pulling time of the eggs..stopping the rocker/turner. Setting the temp and ventilation slider on the incubator.Be aware that the temp at egg level may be different to the temp reading on the incubator. Records of every hatch in deatail so you can adjust the next one. If you check the eggs after hatching you can find out alot of what happened in the incubator. Eggs that have hatched should be crushed in the hand, if the membranes crumble in your fist without falling apart you have got the turning time and hatching conditions correct. The egg should have split on hatching just above the midline of the egg. When the membrane completely stay together and do not crumble the hatch was to moist indicating stopping the turner to early,(You may see chicks hatch wet or unevenly pipped chicks still alive. The membrane falling apart into small pieces indicates you stopped the turner to late or RH may have been to low dueing hatching probably due to to excessive ventilation. If turning was stopped to late a lot of greenish droppings produced by the chick will be seen in the empty shells. The height of pipping is an indication of weight loss during hatching if weight loss was insufficent the air cell remains small and the chicks are forced to pip high on the shell.Some chicks will be unable to pip at all and will drown in the egg. In ideal conditions the chick will pip and cut the shell in a neat circle.Rough or incompleate pipping is a sign of sub-optional conditions. Not enough weight loss is caused by either to low a temperature or over high humidity. If the temperture was to high over the last few days thick and clearly visable blood vessels will be seen in the shell. |
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| colour it green |
thanks for that CF - interesting information
we have our incubator in the dark corner of the dinning room - a little used room. |
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| Chez |
That's a really useful bullet point list, Castle Farm. Is there any chance that that could go in a little piece in the 'articles' second about trouble-shooting a hatch?
I have mine in the spare room. It's got a stead temperature, not too much direct sunlight and very thick walls. Also slightly damp, which helps the humidity 
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| colour it green |
oh that would be a good idea! |
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| colour it green |
our whole house is slightly damp... not had bad hatch rates either come to think of it! |
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| GSHP |
Castle Farm - Thank you ! | ||
| chicken feed |
just shown this topic to a friend thats over and he just cracked up i thought he had gone mad  he then confessed that he had set his incubator forgetting his holiday his son was left in charge but forgot to go and turn the eggs anyhow he returned from his holiday and also forgot the eggs until he went to get someting out of the garage (dump) and herd chirpping his incubator was alive the best hatch he had ever had 29 out of 30 eggs so perhaps all this faffing around we all do is a little over the top  i don't think i will test his theory next season but i might ask him to choose my lottery numbers
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| bodillymill |
IcubatorsHi ya, I am based in Cornwall, we probably suffer the same sort of weather and climate, this year has not been very good and I suspect we have shared the experience. Where to keep an incubator? I have a corti 50 automatic all I have to do is keep the water topped up to keep the humidity right.This year with the really humid? wet weather I kept the incubator indoors in my large fireplace cubbyhole (no drafts) I had, even with the late season start a 90% success rate... The downside of keeping the incubator indoors is if you are placing eggs into the incubator at different laying times. When the little chaps hatch out there is undoubtably a little mess this can get smelly after a few day's and you may need to do the risky cleaning thing which for the remaining eggs is not always advised. Having the incubator indoors though does mean that when you turn the automatic turner off for the first hatch everything is to hand and easier to manage |
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| Tavascarow |
Re: Icubators
Get yourself a cheap small manual incubator (or make one) then you only need to clean your main incubator thoroughly once or twice a season. |
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| bodillymill |
incubatorsManual incubator..... Disagree.... Unless your a full time small holder with incubating as your main occupation and plenty of time to keep on it..If you have a busy job like I do having an automatic is a god send because you dont forget to turn them... keeping everything simple and less complicated is best |
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| Chez |
I think Tav might have meant that if you get a small manual turn to use as a hatcher, then you can keep the large auto rocking constantly and just transfer eggs in to the small one for the last three days for hatching?
I agree re the turning. I tend to forget. Although chicken feed's comment on the thread about making a semi-auto turner was interesting and has made me much less paranoid! |
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| bodillymill |
incubatorbut then again its space idoors where you can manage it all easily ..... I know like you lots of things contribute to the way we do things..... I manage well with the auto, because I turn the eggs that need turning manually when the auto turn is off.....Keeping the tray clean is not too hard and I manage using fresh water and spray surface cleaner on the seperated parts of the tray (On the corti I have also fabricated some full hieght separators that enable me to split the tray fully isolating whole areas of the tray) by the time the auto is switched off I generally know who is going to make an appearance... in the next few day's.... So its a single auto for me for house space and ease of use......
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| Chez |
The only time I've tried multiple hatching, I've not had very good success rates - how do you manage with the humidity? Do you find it doesn't make any real difference to the hatch rate?
GSHP - to answer your original question, I had awful trouble with the hovabator we had at the beginning of the year - it wasn't well insulated at all and it was very difficult. Since I swapped to a brinsea octagon, I have had much less bother - and moving it to a different room in a different house helped, too! |
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| Tavascarow |
Re: incubators
As Chez says I mean running the two together, the manual as a hatcher the auto as a setter. A small manual incubator takes up little room & is easier to clean than an autoturn. I just put the bottom under the hot shower to remove the crud & a light brushing in the hard to reach places with an old toothbrush before spraying with disinfectant & rinsing. It only takes about 5 minutes to clean, my big brinsea autoturn takes about an hour to clean thoroughly which you should really be doing after every hatch (especially if you are using bought in eggs). My brinsea hatchmaker only has a footprint about 15" square so it doesn't take up a lot of room, it will even sit on top of the auto. |
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| bodillymill |
incubator humidityhumidity on multiple hatching......on the Corti the trays are underneath... so having the humidity up at 70-80% in the last three days is important. but they are in three sections and the fan is centrally placed.... so from my experience the area under the fan is slightly less humid. I therefore use the prefabricated dividers I made to channel the air flow away from the eggs that are not in the last 3 days i also modified one side of the Icbtr to allow more air flow out of the incubator ... works well.. |