The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: waddy on August 13, 2015, 12:30:14 pm
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Hi all
I have just had my second disaster with dried out chicks failing to hatch in spite of this time incubating at a higher RH than recommended and using both filled channels and a damp cloth at the hatching stage. I know the fan is drying the membranes too much and shrink wrapping the chicks. Given how easy it is to unplug the fan for cleaning the fluff out (another problem with having a fan at hatching time - fluff everywhere!) my questions are; does the incubator still work with the fan unplugged? And does unplugging the fan mean the incubator overheats? Has anyone tried this?
Much appreciated
Helen
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I have a Brinsea Octagon Autoturn which I use in an unheated, north-facing outhouse room where the temperature and humidity stays fairly stable. I leave the air intake half-open all the way through incubation, reduce the temperature from 37.4 to 37 degrees on day 18 and add half a cup of warm water to one of the channels on day 19. I open the incubator only once a day, unless I've noticed an egg pip but then no progress made for a couple of hours. I take the rsik at that point that the chick has run out of energy or is too large to continue the struggle to hatch, slide the egg out, carefully break it open and replace the chick. The chick generally then survives and thrives - occasionally it won't. Sue Hammon, of the Wernlas Collection, told me they never add water, as our maritime climate means the air is generally humid enough as it is.
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Helen, maybe give Brinsea a call, I've found them very helpful in the past. I do the same as you re water though I use extra hygrometers to check the Brinsea's readings as they can be quite off.
Did you buy it new or secondhand? The latter voids its guarantee :(
I definitely add water especially at the end, the humidity here where we live in April / May is only 28% or so, it doesn't jump up to 40% until it's much warmer outside.
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The incubator was bought new last year in March. I had a couple of fairly successful hatches in it. I have checked the temperature independently which is fine. I have no means of independently checking the RH other than monitoring weights but with the amount of water added at the end it should be ok. The room is an (at the moment) unheated kitchen, not north facing. Although it can be sunny it doesn't get particularly warm and the incubator is on a stone floor (in an autoturn cradle) in a corner that is in shadow. I started at temp 37.5 as per the book with a reduction to 37.3 for hatching. The vent was half open. RH started at 45% but was increased to 50% just over half way through as the weights were going down a bit too fast (although I still had a couple of eggs losing less than recommended; mostly on target around 11% and a few too much). For hatching RH was 75% with both channels filled. I used damp kitchen roll over the eggs at the time I expected them to hatch (although the fan soon dried this). I had moving chicks on day 18 when I stopped turning. When nothing happened on day 21 the following evening I candled again and carefully opened the egg that had lost the most weight to find a shrink wrapped dead chick. I then carefully made air/inspection holes in the others. Only three (of ten) were still alive but just barely. They were all wrapped in tight dry membranes. I carefully made sure they could breathe (very carefully so as not to cause bleeding dampening and pulling the membrane back around their beaks) but they were too weak to help themselves and soon succumbed. I think despite the RH reading very high (to the extent that the readout had condensation) and full channels underneath, the fan is drying the upper side of the eggs too much. If anyone has tried unplugging the fan or has other tips please let me know. I am going to try some more eggs incubated at a 50% RH with some water in a channel from the start. I will keep a careful eye on the weights. I know chicks are at risk if they don't lose enough and get stuck but I would rather help a chick out that is strong enough to make it rather than have ones too weak to live or shrink wrapped dead ones like the last two times. I have to get this right - it is too upsetting and not fair on the chicks.
Helen
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For hatching RH was 75% with both channels filled. I used damp kitchen roll over the eggs at the time I expected them to hatch (although the fan soon dried this).
Is it possible the kitchen roll excluded air from the eggs?
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Ah, I put the kitchen roll underneath the eggs (underneath the wire rack).
Were your last two batches from the same chickens?
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The kitchen roll was just touching the tops of the eggs. The rest was free including plenty of circulation between the rows and round the sides. I am going to try a damp cloth under the tray with some going into the channels for a wick. I am going to try unplugging the fan to see what happens to the temperature (without eggs of course and carefully monitored).
Helen
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Im very sorry to hear this; how upsetting for you.
I have an Octagon Eco so I don't have a hygrometer in mine. I have the water channels half full from the beginning and the vent half open all the way thru too. Nor do I alter the temperature. No problems so far ( mind you, only 4 hatches).
I too would give Brinsea a call. They are very helpful and they at least can tell you what unplugging the fan will do to the hatch.
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Still air machines have to run a few degrees warmer and it becomes very dependant on the ambient temperature in the room. It could be that whilst the water channels are full it isn't evaporating, although if you have condensation within the machine it must be? If the heater is on too much, because the unit is sited in a room that is under 20 degrees, that may dry the chicks out? What is the air temperature in the room?
From your description of the chicks it sounds like they haven't pipped. This would be because the air sac hasn't developed properly because the humidity was initially too high. I know you are weighing them but have you candled the eggs and checked the size of the air sac? The figure I have for weight loss is 11-13%, so you may be too heavy anyway?
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The room at the moment is just under 20 degrees although it would be a bit warmer on a sunny day and has been in the last few weeks so it could possibly be a factor. I did monitor the air sacs and they looked large enough. Four lost between 11 and 12%. Three lost between 12 and 13%. One only lost 9.9%. One 13.4%. The ccl lost way too much at 18%. I don't know why except maybe the shell was more porous for some reason. The CCL and Wyandottes were all good medium sized eggs. Two of the three that nearly made it were two smaller eggs - silkies which I would have expected to have problems with higher weight loss (greater surface area to volume) but they were ok. As the weight loss looked a bit more than I was aiming for in some of the eggs this was when I increased RH to 50% from 45% just over half way and 75% when I stopped turning at day 18. When I made the tiny holes the membranes were definitely too dry and none had pipped internally; as if the fan had the same effect as a hand drier on top of the eggs in spite of the humidity reading and water in the channels below.
Results of experiment; the incubator will work with the fan unplugged and doesn't overheat. However the temperature at egg level is about 10 degrees too low. As Chrismahon says the incubator would have to run higher; a bit too high for me to be comfortable risking it. The temperature gauge in the lid was still reading 37.5 so this showed how important it was to have an independent check at egg level. I will buy a hygrometer to check the RH at egg level as I certainly don't trust the value given on the readout to be consistent throughout the incubator. I have set it up with more eggs; a little water in the channels; a cloth with wicks under the tray and the RH reading 50%. I will try once again to protect the tops of the eggs close to hatching and monitor everything very carefully. I will let you know how I get on. Thank you for your help and suggestions.
:fc:
Helen
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10 degrees is a really big difference. Im surprised
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I usually only see shrink wrapped chicks in incubators that are opened up too often and the humidity lost.
If wet paper towel is drying out the humidity is too low, even with the fan running in a humid atmosphere it wouldn't dry out.
Try minimising the times you open it especially in the final stages, its difficult I know but it will give better results
I open mine occasionally to add eggs/remove chicks but thats it, weighing eggs and candling etc will all reduce the humidity inside the incubator every time you do it and it will take time to recover.
You have plenty of water in your water channels so either there is too much ventilation drying out the inside (vent holes) and/or there is too much ventilation (opening the incubator)
I'd try it without opening it up, forget about weighing eggs, adding wet paper towel etc, make sure the vent holes aren't opened too much and see how you get on.
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Ok good point. I will only open if essential. Although the Brinsea readouts always seem to recover very quickly it may be falsely reassuring if they don't give a true picture of the real values around the eggs.
Thank you
Helen
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Yep my humidity reading recovers in just a few minutes but it can take a good hour or two before the condensation appears on the insides again.
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I have 2 of these and randomly get similar issues. Sometimes good hatch rates but often shrink wrapped chicks. There is a thread on here back along that I put up about dry hatching and weighing etc. and that wasn't a bad hatch but I've had bad ones since and it doesn't seem to be anything consistent. I just wonder if the design makes these machines more susceptible to the environment they are in as I can't seem to find a way to avoid the odd bad hatch. I've also got friends who have had very variable results with Octagon 20s and they can't seem to solve it either.
To be honest I am seriously considering selling them and getting a 190 cabinet model with the auto humidity thing.
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We thought about the 190 cabinet Stereo but have since dismissed it after a local breeder had problems with our eggs. You shouldn't mix breeds because of varying egg porosity anyway. Our Wyandotte eggs are of excellent quality for eating as they store well due to low porosity shells. Unfortunately that makes hatching difficult because the air sac won't develop properly at standard humidity of 50%. They have to be run dry up to day 18. So when she put our eggs in with all the others, ours were the ones that died in the shells.
We're going to stick with our cheap semi-autos which have always given great results, simply because they have no humidity readout so you have to monitor the air sacs. They are well insulated so we don't get the temperature variations and hatching issues of cradle turned automatics either. Good results at just 12 degrees ambient, although we did have the incubator in an open box to protect it from draughts.
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I had this problem with the membranes drying out when they hatch, called Brinsea and explained the problem and they told me the fan could not be disconnected and basically l was doing something wrong and they have never heard of this before. Oh yes, seems like a few people have this problem and they don't know a way around it. I have to keep a sharp lookout when mine start to hatch and spray the eggs a lot to keep them moist and this seems to work. You should not have to do this though, but it helps. Wish l had one without a fan now.
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I had this problem with the membranes drying out when they hatch, called Brinsea and explained the problem and they told me the fan could not be disconnected and basically l was doing something wrong and they have never heard of this before. Oh yes, seems like a few people have this problem and they don't know a way around it. I have to keep a sharp lookout when mine start to hatch and spray the eggs a lot to keep them moist and this seems to work. You should not have to do this though, but it helps. Wish l had one without a fan now.
How do you spray them? Through the vent?
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l put kitchen towels under the eggs, dipping in the water chambers to increase the humidity and have to take the top off the incubator to spray with warmish water. So far its worked and if you are quick the temp does not drop enough to worry about. l suppose a damp kitchen towel over the eggs would work too but you cant see what is happening then.
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I can see a warm water spray being a good way to rapidly get the humidity back around the eggs if you need to open. That sounds like a good tip Mentalmilly. It is interesting what you say about Wyandottes Chrismahon. My first ever hatch last year included six out of six Wyandottes but a few of the other eggs had problems with dry membranes and failed to hatch. I did have to open quite a bit to help free the last Wyandotte who was stuck with not enough room to manoever. What you said about porosity makes sense. My current batch includes six Wyandottes and six very dark Marans. I wonder if these will also struggle if the humidity is higher? It would have been better to just have one variety.
Helen
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I hatch Wyandottes with a wide ariety of other breeds every year and haven't had noticeable differences in hatching, using any of my incubators (Brinsea, Covatutto and an unidentified Italian one). I use fresh, clean eggs, don't wash or candle them and just leave them alone until taking the dividers out and adding a little cooled, boiled water on day 18.
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My Marans hatch best of all but I guess I have been working on my lines for some years now. Also I find the most fertile eggs with very few empties.
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Bit late on this because I've not been on here for a while. I've now got three Octagons - two 20s (one the basic one - hate it, rubbish at monitoring temp & manually filling up as a required) and a 40. The only thing I've really found works for hatching is to run a jay cloth or the equivalent from the water channels up and over the eggs. Then it doesn't dry out because it's wicking the water up and it stops the membrane drying out by direct contact. This only makes a difference if they've pipped externally but that's where I've always had a problem before although more with the ducks and geese than chickens which seem to zip much more quickly and are less liable to get stuck. Had yours pipped inteternally or were they completely shrinkwrapped without even getting that far?
I'm currently working on the philosophy that failure to internally pip means it wasn't meant to be so poor genetics, failure to externally pip was a humidity problem throughout incubation (too big or too small) and failure to hatch having externally pipped is a problem with humidity whilst hatching. I'm sure it's all far more complex than that but that's where I'm up to with my trial and errors so far. All crazy given a hen just seems to sit there for three or four weeks and then hatch perfectly (although some dozy broodies have managed to stand on them after hatching which is worse). Even the broodies struggled with duck eggs this year so I'm going to have to have a more careful think about them!
H