The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: KahlanA on April 03, 2015, 07:11:15 am
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Sorry me again :innocent:
Our eggs are in lockdown as of yesterday (day 17 as there's a mixed batch in there with pekins) and I filled up the water pot. Today it's between 1/3 and 1/2 empty - so tomorrow do I risk opening it to refill it??
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Have you closed down the vent as well? Not completely but most of the way. You're looking to try and create a closed system so the moisture should have nowhere to go except maintaining the humidity inside the incubator. I do open my incubator during hatching but I also know I often then have to help (but I've got a bigger Brinsea and the fan dries the membranes so I think I'd have to help anyway). See whether any have pipped and if not, you're fine to open,
H
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Erm, what vent?
The manual says nothing about a vent!
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Is there not a little slide covering a hole on there somewhere? Open it to let more air in, close it to seal. I only know the Eco mini from one they use at school so not so familiar with it but I'd have thought there must be a vent somewhere?
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Nope nothing slides. There's a tiny hole on the back - 2mm maybe?
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I don't have a vent on my Brinsea Eco either, l have to take the top off to fill with water but it seems to work ok. Have hatched duck eggs in it.
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Don't worry, there's no vent on the Mini Advance either, though the Octagon has a vent to regulate humidity the Minis don't and are actually much easier to use. Fill up the water reservoir and then leave it - the chicks will generate plenty of humidity when they start hatching. Usually there's a patch of water vapour of a few inches wide in an inconvenient place - blocking your view of a hatching chick! :D
If you ever get an incubator with a vent (hatching is addictive ;D ), don't close it entirely at hatching time but leave it open a teensy bit, the chicks do need a little bit of fresh air to come into the incubator.
So the excitement has started? :excited:
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Have you closed down the vent as well? Not completely but most of the way. You're looking to try and create a closed system so the moisture should have nowhere to go except maintaining the humidity inside the incubator.
Disagree with this Hester, you should be opening the vents and increasing the ventilation in the later stages as the unhatched chicks will need more oxygen.
Increasing the surface area of water will keep the humidity up to compensate for the extra ventilation.
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Maybe it depends on the incubator - Brinsea recommends it nd it's hugely difficult trying to maintain humidity in the octagons. Risk of the membranes drying is far greater than lack of oxygen.
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I know that Brinsea recommends it but this last hatch I opened the vent, filled channels on one side and added wet j-cloths. Best hatch ever and no shrink wrapped chicks. It was a 40 though, not sure if that would make a difference. Just had a broody have 100% hatch in a difficult month temperature wise, incubators shouldnt be this difficult!
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I don't think they are, I think we've just made them more difficult! ;D
I commented on another thread recently about how years ago we just used to set the temperature, fill the water channel and open the vent a little bit each week and never had any bother.
I think all this humidity checking we do nowadays just makes us interfere more, altering it up and down and probably ends up doing more harm than good.
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Do you hatch waterfowl as well Clansman? To be honest, the chickens are pretty much as you describe normally for me (except my last lot when somebody helpfully turned the incubator off). They pop out nicely after 21 days of me doing not a lot. It's the ducks and geese that really struggle to hatch and it is partly because they find it hard to pip (small air sack, humidity too high) and partly because then the membrane dries out and sticks to them. I lose quite a lot at full term before they pip externally and that's gutting.
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Thanks everyone - humidity must have been fine as 6/6 hatched. It gave up after though :(
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Do you hatch waterfowl as well Clansman? To be honest, the chickens are pretty much as you describe normally for me (except my last lot when somebody helpfully turned the incubator off). They pop out nicely after 21 days of me doing not a lot. It's the ducks and geese that really struggle to hatch and it is partly because they find it hard to pip (small air sack, humidity too high) and partly because then the membrane dries out and sticks to them. I lose quite a lot at full term before they pip externally and that's gutting.
I hatch muscovy and goose eggs, for them I incubate dry till the last week then open the vents up and add water for the hatch, try not adding any water for the first three weeks and see how you get on with that, sounds like you could be right about the humidity and they are possibly growing too large to hatch.
With chickens and turkeys I usually have water in right the way through.
With quail I don't add any water at all, always seem to get a lot better hatches that way, why I don't know ;D