Friday, March 27, 2015

Marsh RX Automatic Loaded with Eggs

Third hour Agri-Science Class at Sedan loaded the Marsh incubator with 70 eggs on Wednesday and the lesson on incubating begins for 8 freshman.  The thermometer with a wick to measure the humidity isn't reading properly, so I am relying on the instruction manual with water at the first post should have humidity in the 48% level.  Adding 1/4 cup water comes to the first post and has been evaporating at 24 hours.  During the week students will add water when it has evaporated,  and weekends will be dry humidity incubation.

The students inspected their eggs and several eggs were given names based on their size or color.  After the incubator was filled a couple dozen eggs were left over and the students decided to take the remaining eggs to home economics and fixed themselves scrambled eggs.

I will let you know the outcome of the hatch.  As for the Janoel8-48 incubator I am taking a brief break because I have roughly a 100 chicks from the recent hatch's and my pens or brooders are full.      

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Humidity Too High

Something went wrong with incubation # 6 using Janoel8-48  as only 8 chicks hatched and 11 died at different stages through day 21.  I suspect the humidity remained too high after I added water to the channels.  I wanted a dry hatch incubation with the humidity running in the 30's through the first 18 days.  However, my effort created a 60% humidity for several hours before the humidity dropped down into the 40-30% levels.

I used a squeeze bottle with tubing and added 1/4 cup water once the humidity dropped below 20% and never lifted the lid until the 19th day when I removed the egg turner.  My problem may have been when I added water and the humidity raised to 60% and held that range for several hours before dropping into the 40's for most of the day, then gradually dropping off to the teens before I added more water.  The water channels were drying out regularly on a 24 hour period.

The positive side is the squeeze bottle kept the humidity at 60% during the hatch period.  When I start the next incubation, I will use a syringe to add water by tablespoon measurements to get the 30% humidity level.

A lot of clears were in this batch of eggs and I wasn't surprised either.  I had been gathering eggs on very cold days.  Our cold days are hopefully behind us now and were ready to enjoy spring.

 

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Attempting a Dry Hatch with Janoel8-48

I using a water bottle with tubing to add water to the incubator without lifting the lid when the humidity level drops below 27%.  The lines on the bottle equal 1/4 cup of water and when I add 1/4 cup of room temperature water the humidity raises to 60% for a couple of hours and the drops down into the 40's for the remainder of the day.  A few days have required an additional 1/4 cup after dropping to 8% when the water channels are completely dry. 
 
The humidity alarm is set at 45% when you purchase your Janoel8 and you'll need to lower the humidity alarm settings if your goal is to have a 30-45% humidity level through day 18.  Their are some good articles reference Dry Hatch Incubation on the web. 
 
When day 19-21 rolls around the water bottle will work nicely and one won't have to lift the lid to add water.  This should improve the hatch. 

Marsh RX Continues a Good Hatch

Round 2 with the Marsh RX incubation completed with a 64% hatch rate.  42 chicks, 16 clears and 8 eggs didn't hatch among the 66 eggs.  Not too bad considering the cold winter working against the egg gathering. 
 
Incubator is ready for a school project within a couple of weeks.
 
Nice assortment of chicks that hatched on Day 20 and 21.

This RX didn't come with a water fountain for humidity within the incubator so I put this water bottle/tubing system together and it works fine.  Each line on the water bottle equals 1/4 cup of water.  During the hatch a 1/2 cup would evaporate within 8 hours.  Otherwise, I added 1/4 cup twice daily during the first 18 days.