I just want to say again your ideas are great. As you can see I am in the comments from two years ago and tried this and had a good success rate and Everytime I've incubated since. Tomorrow I am going to start incubating somebody else's eggs to get new blood in my flock. I shared this video with her as she is new to selling eggs and incubating and only getting a 60% rate. I gave her some tips too. I saw in another video that you should wash eggs so I tried that with a batch of my bantam eggs and I don't know that it made a difference I still sprayed with peroxide after washing and had a good success rate but this time I will only spray with peroxide just because I prefer. Keep up the great videos!
I've been using the 3% Hp for a couple of years on my plants too. It seems to make them healthy and I don't have the same level of moulds. It also helps to keep the birds off the buds on my fruit trees too.
@@someoneinncarolina your projects are AWESOME! Thank You! If hatching dirty eggs…..or not, is that right, you never use cloth or other to remove dirt?
It's good for fish eggs in a breeder box that I hatch them out in. And I add a little in the fish tank too. All eggs need to be clean just before hatching. Chickens, snakes..
I got a goose egg from someone today... Just one... I wanted to give it the best chance of hatching and found your video! Thank you so much!! Wish me luck 😊
Goose eggs after 4 days you set it have to make sure to spray with warm water 2 times a day and flip eggs 180 turn . Do better in incubators with fans. Egg should lye on side needs to rotate 4 x a day. Temp should be 100 humidity 55% for goose eggs. Depending on size of egg should hatch day 27 - 32 . If large goose will hatch day 35. lock down day 26 larger birds day 27, Lots on internet can read. Lock down humidity goes up to 75% , when PIP breaks egg shell drop temp 98 can take 3 days to hatch, don't interfere . Good luck hope gosling hatches for you.
Hope to see more videos from your channel soon! I see that you haven’t posted in a while but I wanted to say that I love the name of your channel and how informative you are! 🙌🏻
My daughter lives in Fletcher N.C. I got a Brinsea eco 2 incubator for Christmas and ordered the small egg semi-automatic plate for quail. Will be hatching in the Spring.
Thanks! Had not thought of peroxide till now. Interesting that anyone was able to get a patent on the process since peroxide is readily available everywhere and it seems it would be almost impossible to enforce such a patent. But stranger things have happened, I’m sure! Will give the peroxide a try next incubation. Thanks again!
I've freed a stuck chick by pouring a 1/2 teaspoon of luke warm water into the shell. The chick came right out. If your coops can be locked up at night it would really help to stop raccoons etc. I liked the video, very helpful.
Nice tip! I've used distilled water a little as a tool, but it's worth noting that you need to avoid it getting in their mouth/nose potentially. I've seen baby chicks drown in small amounts of water.
STOP facing your coops to the outside, face them to the inside of your yard. You have them facing the direction the predators are coming from! It's like an "open" invitation!
Hey just enjoyed watching your video! I live in north ga, so we’re not at long way from one another. Really enjoyed watching your info on hatching eggs! Thank you!
I’m Glad I found you! You have a lot of knowledge. I’m gonna Try this out! Done Question tho, Can I spray them as soon as Inpick them before storing them? Or only spray them a Day before incubating them?
I always thought that peroxide ate up any dead protein like dead skin . I never heard it was that sterilization process, so that’s new , I’ll do some research on that patent , thank you !
The patent would have expired 17 or 20 years after it was granted (US patent law changed in 1993, and since this patent was granted prior to that, it could be of either duration). In ether case, it expired no later than 2010 so this method is no longer patented... ...so use it to your hearts content!
I saw on a commercial post that they do use a disinfectant on the egg shells before starting the incubation. The bad stuff can go through the pores of the shells giving you fewer hatching out. I think that is what you have found out using the peroxide which is great. I'm going to try it myself. You can drink food grade peroxide which I have in my frig.
Hi Barry. I've have read about various disinfectants and none of them sounded as good as diluted hydrogen peroxide. My normal hatch without hydrogen peroxide was not nearly as good. I would warn that I have only tested around 3% hydrogen peroxide and the stuff in your fridge may be higher in concentration. I would also warn that hydrogen peroxide is not something I would recommend drinking... get a little of the 3% stuff on your hands and it will burn your skin even at that concentration after a few minutes. You can see discoloration from the tissue damage on your skin. Imagine that inside your mouth/throat/stomach - it's not going to kill you, but it will cause damage to tissues. I'm sure you get that warning a lot though and have already considered pros / cons before making the decision to drink it (if indeed that's what you do with it). Thanks for the comment!
@@someoneinncarolina for those with cancer, I've heard/read it has a benefit. I just can't remember the details. My neighbor did it for a while again can't remember specifics. He battled leukemia I think but has passed after 10 years. I went through pancreatic cancer so was in tune with all the things.
@@janampariyar581 "Sanitizer" is not a thing, it is many things. I could not make a recommendation based upon that; however, generally I would not recommend anything other than peroxide at the proper dilution.
5 days ago before incubating, I diluted bleach and clean my poopy eggs. Got no clue what will happen. I am hoping for the best. But hydrogen peroxide seems to be a better choice, I will try that next incubation.
Seen my grandfather back in 90s use kitty litter he would wash it and soak it an pour all over the bottom of incubator and would wash eggs with diluted vinegar he had 90 percent plus hatch rate
Its not going to hurt your spray bottle, I’ve been using it for years, pouring the peroxide directly into the spray bottle for general disinfecting. It’s probably the disinfecting that increases the hatch rate
The peroxide method has a higher hatch rate than formaldehyde and other common forms of disinfectant according to the patent, so I think there is more to it, but it could simply be weakening the shell a little, etc. Thanks for the tip about the bottle... I had a bottle fail but I can't recall if it was alcohol, peroxide, or something else. :)
Setting up some serama eggs.Saw you video very helpful and informative. I prefer the dry incubation as well. I was curious regarding using deionized water if there is no harm. The help the chick power thru the shells easier.
Hi Again. I am back with new questions. I also wanted to let you know that I think your peroxide spraying was a great idea and I set 36 of my own eggs in the incubator (I took into consideration of what you said about getting shipped eggs and then the cost for scrambled eggs-but I did want some different breeds and new blood) . On day 10, 34 out of 36 were fertile
You are using the smarter survivalist birds. The off spring should be more apt to avoid the predators. I like hatching birds in the winter too. Harder to get the eggs before they get to cold. They are ready early in the year to start laying. April or May instead of June-August they should start laying. I start middle of Dec and have hens ready for buyers who want them to lay soon. Great video. The ones that you help that are a little slow. Just keep pestering and rubbing them with your finger. They will catch up sooner that way. In my opinion. Will have to try this peroxide spray.
We find that it takes 24 hours for a chicken to produce/lay it's next egg ! I can almost time when I pick all my eggs... 12 blue orpingtons lay around noon daily ! Bard rocks done laying before noon ! The Silky's lay before I get out for the morning feed ! Plenty of boxes..... Plenty of room.... Always in coop or pen..... Yet they lay in shifts ? I feed n water 3 times a day.... 95% Layer mash, 5% mix of black sunflower'seed Wheat, corn, oats meal worms & maggots..... &...... baked & crushed egg shells ! (so they are unrecognizable, almost powder)
Thank you so much for this video! I've tried your method and my hatch rate was the best one yet! My question to you is, do you pre-wash the eggs before incubation? And then spray them with the peroxide solution? Or do you NOT wash the eggs before incubation and just spray with the peroxide solution?
You should never "wash" the eggs because it destroys the natural protective layer of microbes. Though obviously the peroxide will act similarly, it skips a step. If you wash with water you will create a catalyst for infiltration of microbes, where as the peroxide diluted with distilled water acts similarly it also sterilizes simultaneously. I have successfully hatched eggs covered in poop. I have NOT successfully hatched eggs that were exposed to water for long periods of time. Water is a very tricky variable when it comes to incubation. :)
After subdivisions began to be built in the surrounding area I had to replace my flock at least once a year. It really stung when the coyotes too my pullets that were due to start laying within the month. :( I bought a LGD puppy and @ 6 months they got her, too! So, I talked with TAMU and reworked my fencing (to contain the dogs) and got 2 more LGD puppies. No more losses to predators on land. There is an alligator in the pond that I still haven't figured out how to deal with. It's tried to grab the dogs several times and I am missing ducks. I have very wary ducks that seldom ever go into the pond anymore.
@@heatherk8931 My X shot him and it rolled. 2 days later....Gator. The same one? I think so just looking at the face. But, that was in June 2022. The wild birds have started moving home and the Yard Birds are only staying on the edge of the banks. I'm thinkin' sumthin's hinky. If even the 'Whistlers' won't go in the water????Might be a problem in the water. JS
I have a basic video about it, but it's way to technical for most people. I am hoping to come back around to this and do a more basic design that doesn't require people to be engineers to make it. :) ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html
@@passionfruiter3184 Not about smart vs. stupid - about time to thoroughly document something complicated. It's not like there aren't hundreds of open source incubator plans out there already.
I've been kind of worried about the last stage of hatching and the humidity which is what you had with the chick stuck in the shell. I notice on the commercial hatchery process that when they go to lock down they bring on the humidity... I noticed this because their temperature dropped which always happens when you raise the humidity. So, I'm going to throw out the 99.5 temperature must have... and raise my humidity as they did and see how it goes.
The temperature dipping a little lower is not a big deal. When the temperature gets too high it is a really big deal. I think your hatch will be fine. :)
That is pretty low... try a rinse with hydrogen peroxide initially when setting the eggs and see if it improves. My guess is your humidity might be too high or too low. You can tell by candling to check the air space in the egg. If the air space is too small it means they are saturated in water (humidity too high). If the air space is too large it means they will have a hard time breaking through the membrane and egg shell (humidity too low). It's also possible it's related to genetics, but usually it's the conditions. If your hens get broody you can use one to incubate the eggs alternatively. I have excellent luck with broody hens... except once the eggs hatch they are often terrible mothers. Good luck!
@@someoneinncarolina Thanks for the tips. I think the humidity may have been too low. I tried a "dry" hatch. I kept the humidity around 45%. I started my higher humidity level at day 18. I will do it sooner after watching your video and for sure try the hydrogen peroxide trick. Two out of the 4 that hatched needed help getting out of the shell so I should probably not do a dry hatch again. A skunk killed my chickens so I have one silkie hen left. She is beautiful but the worst mom and she never goes broody. That is probably how she survived the attack, she wasn't on a nest being a broody monster. She fled when it all went down.
@@beegirl84 My layers perch up high every night... my Silky's lay first... barred rocks next, blue orpingtons done just after lunch...! By then they are all outside.... Guinea's flock protectors ! Just like the turkeys... Predators 0 Chickens 50+
I did a video about my incubators here: ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html However, there wasn't enough interest for me to bother documenting my particular design. Here is a link to some other incubator designs that might be helpful: www.backyardchickens.com/articles/homemade-chicken-egg-incubator-designs-pictures.47737/ Good luck! Thanks for the comment!
Use a electric hot wire about 6-10 inches off ground on outside of chicken pen will keep fox raccoon. Dogs and any other prediter away. Also find old sain net for fishing to cover open chicken yard( for covering) to keep hawks away.
Good and common advise. Unfortunately I've had plenty of breaches with a hot wire system. The net probably would work to keep hawks away though. :) A lot of things work for different people in different regions - it largely depends on the desperation of the animals at the time.
man congratulations it looks like you been doing it for a while, question i had no success het am n my third attempt, and even after the due date i have left them few day more, and i have broken the eggs to see what happened and there is, nothing, they looked as if there were just old eggs, am leaning towards the eggs are not fertile, now what can i do to get my chickens to fertilized the eggs ?????
Forgive my lack of preconceptions: 1) Your hen is being mated by a rooster, right? Without that, they will never be fertile. Also if the rooster is a lot smaller than the hen, it can prevent successful fertilization. A single mating can fertilize a hen for 2 weeks. 2) If you're storing the eggs in a fridge, stop doing that. A fridge is too cold typically. Try going directly from nest to incubator. Even though this will stagger the hatching, it's not a big deal. 3) Sounds like you don't have a candling light. Buy one, they are cheap. You should be able to see something around 7 days. Check every 5-7 days to watch progress. Have DRY clean hands while handling. Water is an ideal catalyst for contamination. 4) Make sure your incubator isn't running hot; it should be between 99f-102f. Even a couple degrees too hot and they will never develop. Hope that helps!
hell yea you help is greatly appreciate, and yes the i have roosters with the chickens, and about the candling i haven't done it cause i wanted to wait til the end, but am going to check them and again much thanks i learned about water, the hard way, what i do is disinfected the eggs, and keep the eggs in a room at room temp. hey, i know this will be my time, you'll see . will let you know
The point of storing them at 50f (cold) is to extend the period of time you have to activate the eggs. If you're storing the eggs more than a few days at room temperature it can also prevent development of an embryo. If you start incubation immediately you have the highest chance of development. So if your current plan doesn't work, try immediate incubation and staggered hatching.
Subscribed and notifications on! Question: do you have a video on how you made those incubators? They look like you made them and they look amazing and very well crafted
I went over it a little in this video way back: ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html I never had enough interest to justify the effort of documenting the complex circuits and such. My goal this fall or winter is to build a simpler more off the shelf incubator and open source that.
@@someoneinncarolina, did your set up cost a lot to make? I am looking into a cheap, easy way to incubate eggs. I'm totally new to this so I am trying to research. Ice chests cost lots here so it would probably be easier to buy an incubator online. I also am disabled and don't have tools, so it's a bit hard at times. Right now, I'm trying a heating pad. So far, the temp and humidity are good. I'm not sure if the eggs are fertilized but since I just started today, I will check in a few days. Wish me luck! They are button quail eggs. My female was broody up till the last few days. No hatches as of yet so this time, I'm trying.
@@awesomekoga7848 I'd recommend you get an egg candler (bright flashlight basically) to verify embryo development. As long as your heating pad is consistent then you should be fine. In fact, a heating pad is more ideal than using a light bulb because a heating pad does not emit visible light. As for my setup, I want to say it was around $40 per incubator. This required technical expertise, tools, and fabrication skills. Check out the backyard chicken forums for a section on building simple incubators if you're determined to make your own. :) Good luck!
I enjoyed your video thank you for making it. I will use the technique of hydrogen peroxide the next time I set my eggs in the incubator I had never thought about this before. It sounds like it would work and I'm willing to give it a try. I will let you know since I have subscribed to your Channel. If anyone ever loved chickens this got to be me. LOL. Well I guess you do to my friend. Once again thanks.
Sarah Lunafire. I would have to say that the hydrogen peroxide actually does work!! It kills off the bacteria off the egg shell therefore enhances your hatch ability rate. I also would say use distilled water in your incubator. If you use this technique let me know what you think about it.
Interesting to watch. I only have one egg. About 2 weeks ago, the electricity shut off. My heart sank. I put on a warm pocket shirt and held the egg inside the pocket. It was off about 60-75 minutes 2:30 in the morning. I was growing so big inside. Now, I’m concerned because today is the 28th day for the duck egg. I talk to it all the time. It will move at certain angles. My granddaughters are beyond excited about the egg. How long do I wait, before I give up?
It should pip internally to access the air pocket inside the egg, then externally to breath fresh air. Then it should unzip and hatch eventually. I would candle it and monitor it for a few more days. Sometimes eggs hatch 31+ days if the incubation temperature is a bit low.
Hi! I'm wondering if it's safe to use the hydrogen peroxide process if the eggs aren't going to be incubated for awhile. For example, if you wanted to sanitize them before shipping them out? Thank you!
Hey! Great video and thanks! I’m adding my request for an incubator tutorial. In fact I’d be delighted to purchase good, clear plans. I’ll bet it would be a winner for you on Amazon for Kindle. If there’s anything credibly done there, I’ve not been able to find it. One thing I have a problem with in the tutorials I’ve watched is that they all seem to assume knowledge I don’t have and often use component names that mean nothing to me and leave me wondering where to source materials.
Hmm... thanks for your input. I hadn't considered publishing plans, but I suppose I could give it a try just to see how it does. Good point on sourcing materials - that is often a challenge. Let me ask you this - how many eggs are you looking to incubate at once?
Some Guy In N Carolina I’m flexible as to how many eggs. I think it would be great to start with a smaller incubator that could later be used as a hatcher for a cabinet incubator if my poultry addiction gets to that level. So enough room for that, for sure. From my reading on Backyard Chickens I’m guessing a lot of folks go that way. Also I’m justifying my covetousness for an incubator because I’ve pretty much decided to add quail as another meat source. I’d definitely want one for quail, right? ;-) I have geese coming, so there will be goose eggs too, and heritage turkeys. (I don’t want them to brood if I can help it because I want them all following my cows around their rotational grazing. (Obviously not including the quail.) I realize the turkeys will go where they like, but some folks have told me their turkeys choose to mostly stay inside the poultry netting. I’m okay with mostly. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.)
@@cindyskillman544 Wow, that's ambitious. If your lifestyle and time allows it, you can juggle quite a bit I've found. After my daughter was born I really scaled down my farming activities to just bantam chickens and full chickens, then eventually to just full chickens. I used to do quite a lot of guinea fowl hatching and raising them as well, which is a challenge due to their wildness. I'm also interested in turkeys. My wife has some interest in quail, but they seem a bit small for eating IMO. :) The next incubator design I have in mind is a cabinet style, but for the price point I am hoping to support about 100 eggs and 1 month of raising. We'll see...
Some Guy In N Carolina I understand about kids. They just take your breath away in so many ways! LOL We’re retired, so have plenty of time. I’ve always wanted to do this, but life sometimes doesn’t flow where we had planned. Anyway, let me know if you do put something up for Kindle. Your incubators are the best looking ice chest types I’ve seen. Usually they’re really haphazard. Not that that would keep them from working, but it seems like a less-than-good-sign.
@@cindyskillman544 Thanks. The problem with the design of the incubators in this video is that I CNCed some of the parts I designed, and did microcontroller programming for the software controller. It's way too complex for the average person to create from plans. The next design will be all off the shelf parts and an approach that doesn't require high fabrication equipment/skills.
Can you use peroxide after a day of incubation on a couple. Most were clean but I've noticed a few with a little dirt.I have a large batch now I sprayed half a batch from a distance. Hoping to get a good hatch rate. I did not spray as much as you did. I tried peroxide on my first batch of shipped eggs and had success but on my next batch it was a bad rate. Maybe I didnt use enough? Any help is appreciated! Tia
You should not spray after incubation has begun, at least not consistently. I have hatched eggs covered in POOP just fine. The main thing is to ensure water does not create a bridge between outside bacteria and inside embryo. Better to stay on the dry side during primary incubation and wet things (with WATER) more near the end after the embryo has mostly formed. I think before incubation has begun, you should use plenty of peroxide (diluted at around 3%) to clean things up. Really think about this process as erasing on a piece of paper. You want to start blank, but you don't want to erase your embryo once it has begun. I can't say for sure the thresholds of at what point in time, or what quantity of peroxide would be OK. Sorry I can't be more helpful off hand. Good luck!
Do you have automatic egg turners in the coolers? Or do you manually task that regularly? Also, where do you buy your electronics for the incubators??? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!! Do you have automatic humidifiers set up in them as well?
opps I'm sorry. I ended up with 23 that hatched. One died but it was weak from the start it was the only one I had to help out of the shell and died like the next day. But the other 22 are currently running around my property. I had NO expectations of that many chicks hatching!!!! lol We have 7 ducks. 1 is a drake. I have not seen any mating going on yet and their near a year old, so I am going to incubate a few to see if they are fertile-their Muscovy ducks. 3 we got as chicks last summer and the other 4 i got as pullets a in the beginning of Feb. The new ones are SO wild they literally flew right out of the run one by one as soon as we took them out of the crate. We had no idea, the person we got them from didn't warn us so we didn't know any better since the 3 we have since babies and they did what the chickens did. Now we have these wild hens that fly to the tip of our roof to sleep at night teaching them bad habits. My honey has this homemade thing he shoots off that sounds like a loud firecracker. He did that once and these ducks flew probably 200-300 feet high in the air. I was afraid they wouldn't come back but they did. So anyways they have taught the existing 3 their wicked ways. now none of them really ever sleep in the coop at night. they lay on the grass. So that also means they rarely lay in the coop leaving me fishing out eggs from everywhere-dirty! But from mud. So can you tell me what to do in this situation ? Am I able to incubate mud dirty eggs at all? Should I wash and spray with peroxide? etc?
If the eggs got wet, it's a dice roll whether they are infected/can hatch. Your best bet is to sterilize with hydrogen peroxide and clean them up, then cross your fingers. I have no experience with ducks, but that behavior sounds a bit like guinea fowl. You might be too late, but you should try keeping them locked in a coop for a couple weeks, then only letting them out just before it gets dark (maybe an hour)... and leave a light on in the coop until they go back in, then shut it off. Continue letting them out a little earlier each day with the light on so they head towards it. Eventually they will automatically come to the coop when it gets dark out.
Ok. Thanks so much! I will give that a try. I don't know if the eggs got wet because they are laid under the roof at the bottom (A frame) but they lay in loose dirt so they are always dirty, but i have found them literally laying in the middle of field and some crazy places too. So yeah, fingers crossed!
@@someoneinncarolina great plan to retrain the ducks! 😅 wow, I have only 6 adults and 2 are roosters, of which 1 runs the hens ragged and they mostly hide. Those I gather at night, after giving a snack put them in the hen house. Probably need to rehome the aggressor
I have egg rollout commercial metal cage design and my quail lay throughout the day. When it's super cold, how do you harvest your hatching eggs? I made cage extention sand box bivouac for my cages and put hay in the sandbox. The quail seem to like to lay in the straw and will even go broody and keep the eggs warm until I can get them in the incubator. I fear letting the eggs get so cold or even freeze, which prevents good hatching eggs
The eggs are only sprayed with hydrogen peroxide ONCE at the beginning as an initial sterilization. I couldn't say if there would be any advantage or disadvantage to doing it more than once.
Thanks for sharing. Do you have to mix the hydrogen peroxide with water before spraying, if so how much water to, how much peroxide? Thanks for your information.
"Incidentally" the typical over the counter ratio of water to hydrogen peroxide is already correct in the consumer product. My conclusion is someone just decided to try using OTC hydrogen peroxide and it worked. Astonishing to me that the process can even be patented. So to answer your question more simply, unless you are using lab grade hydrogen peroxide, it is already the correct ratio of water. Thanks.
Actually one other clarification - hydrogen peroxide used for bleaching hair will also not be the correct ratio. Your typical OTC for wound care would be the correct ratio - should say on the back 3-7%. Thanks.
Hello there!I have a problem and I need your opinion on something.I put in the incubator 40 phoenix chicken eggs and I got after 21 days only 10 chics.5 chics died in the eggs or soon after they hatched and all the rest were unfertilized eggs.I have a flock of 22 hens.There used to be 4 roosters in the flock and the alpha male was very dominant towards the others.Soon after the disappointing hatch,I got rid of the alpha male and two more roosters and now I got only one.This one is not very active sexually and the alpha male wasnt as well.Why does this happen and how can I make him more fertile?
I haven't personally had this problem with my roosters. Mating is for asserting dominance as much as reproduction... I've even had hens "mate" other hens to display dominance. It's similar to rabbits in that way. That said, there are plenty of people who SWEAR their rooster has never mated their hens, and the eggs are still fertilized. It only takes 1 mating for 14 days of fertile eggs. My guess is your rooster may be particular to certain hens... ie is not mating all of them. So while it appears he is not mating successfully based upon your hatch rate, it's possible he just has a few favorites. How do you force him to mate with all the hens evenly? I'm not sure. :( You can always isolate him with certain hens I suppose. Beyond that, Google will give you a better answer than me, since I have little experience with this issue personally. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Good luck!
Hi.. Can you still hatch fertile eggs refrigerated due to storage issues or incubator currently occupied. Please advise whether refrigerated eggs do hatch and for how many days you may store in a refrigerator.
I just watched a vid last night a young lady had unwittingly refrigerated the eggs and they hatched - don't remember how many but enough she was happy!
Good afternoon, have you hatch turkeys? I need some thoughts on hatching if you have any ideas. Have not had good hatch rate. We live in the mountains about 8300'
Hello. If you had ONLY two choices of 99 degrees Fahrenheit OR 100 degrees Fahrenheit on your forced air incubator which would you choose for Mandarin duck eggs?
I have never incubated ducks; however, I would lean towards slightly cooler (99f). Here is my reasoning: incubators are never fully equal in temperature in all areas due to entropy and thermal conduction - there will be hot spots and cool spots with some variance. Hot spots tend to hatch and develop slightly sooner than cold spots. That said, if you go TOO HOT, it will kill the embryo absolutely, where as if you go slightly too cool, the embryo will survive, but develop more slowly. There is a higher variance of tolerance in cooler conditions than in hotter conditions while still enabling development of the embryo. Therefor I would lean towards cooler. Hope that helps! :)
Hi there! I just stumbled on your channel. I am now following you. Any tips on hatching Muscovy? I just did my first hatch of runners, cayuga and call ducks. I used 50:50 listerine water to prep the eggs and had a 92% hatch rate (beginners luck? maybe).
I can't say I've had experience with anything but Chickens (bantam/full) and Guinea Fowl (fancy/broiler). I would encourage you to try hydrogen peroxide as the sterilizer and tell everyone here how it worked out! :D
someguyinncarolina I will give it a try. I forgot to mention I hatched 3 of 4 silkie eggs (4th was not fertilized) they are 72 hrs old - and I have a 3 week old solo silkie. When do you think I can keep them together? I’ve done supervised visits for half hour both today and yesterday. Precious little things.
That's tricky - chickens grow so fast. Generally I mix them when the little ones can run away from the big ones faster than the big ones can walk on them! I'd guess maybe a week for the little ones.
@@someoneinncarolina 1 week is good. I bought 3 buff Orpington chicks when they were available and my 4 chicks hatched out the next week. Amazing to see at 1 week the growth difference! At 1 week for my hatched I started testing them together to see how they did. Hilarious because my hatchling pecked at the older bird right off!😂 3/18/23 birthday (named Paddy, of course). So now I leave together for hours but sleep separate and wet crumbles separately to make sure everyone gets enough. Seems to be working well.
Can I try this after I've already had my eggs set for a couple days? Will it really hurt if it's not right before they go in? I tend not to stress over my bator.
@@huss9629 I do the floating candling method and things come out fine. :) The key is to not stress. Eggs in nature get rained on, touched by all sorts of bacteria, and more, and still manage to hatch.
Great video! Thank you. Quick question, does this work on duck eggs? Secondly, if I have eggs already in the incubator for 7 days, can I take them out and spray them with HP?
I believe it will work for any eggs; that said a big point of this is to sterilize the surface to help prevent infection during incubation, so after 7 days it may help or it may not. I don't think it will hurt to try it.
Fantastic, thank you 🙏. I’m overwhelmed with tens of subscriptions, and all of them are either farming, gardening, or raising farm all animals, so I end up avoiding to subscribe to channels that are a mix of videos from everything in life out there.
Without actually going outside to measure and count, I want to say there are 3 or 4 holes, maybe 3" diameter. They have variable ventilation using a cover system. So the holes are actually "half" holes to allow the cover to block or open the half hole. Hopefully that makes sense. I will say you don't need A LOT of ventilation for successful hatching, but you need more than a few pencil sized holes. Also, these incubators have fans which force circulation of air.
If the temperature is maintained, it can be off indefinitely. The swings in extremes are a real problem... if it's off for 1 second and drops 10 degrees, it's a problem. If it's off 1 day and drops 1 degree, it's fine. The amount of time has some importance, but in general you want to minimize extreme swings. If you dropped 5 degrees, I would probably try to minimize it to no more than a few hours. Basically it will cause them to take longer to develop, or be too weak to hatch successfully, or simply stop developing, all depending on how extreme the swings are and the duration. Hope that helps.
I am sorry I should have been more clear in my question. I have been having trouble getting comments thru so i made it brief figuring it wouldn't go thru. What I meant was when you spray the eggs and walls of incubator with distilled water, are you doing that the whole way thru incubation or just during lockdown? And approximately how many times a day are you spraying them?
I fill the bottom of the incubator with some tap water always, and I spray once a day with distilled water until near the end of the incubation when I spray maybe twice a day or so. Basically I just spray when I'm checking up on things. This was also a winter incubation so the heaters ran more and hence things were very dry. In other conditions you wouldn't need to spray as much. These incubators were basically out in the open (gable venting) in an unconditioned space, fighting below freezing temperatures. Use a humidistat to verify whether you need more or less moisture. I don't think you need to be as strict as some people say about humidity parameters - they varied widely during incubation and I still had very high success rates hatching when using hydrogen peroxide. As with many things people tend to be dogmatic to a fault without doing real experimentation to verify assumptions. I've broken many "rules" when incubating and still had high success.
Thanks. My findings are based on years of experimentation, though I never intentionally do harm. I will warn about sealing up an incubator - it MUST have some air flow, and I don't mean a few small holes. If your incubator is sealed up dramatically, the chicks may hatch, but they may have deformities. I figured that out the hard way with an early design that had around 6x 1/4" holes total - not enough. I was also trying to meet the standards of humidity that others talk about. There is actually such a thing as too much humidity as well... the embryo when doing the internal pip must have sufficient air space to develop lungs. If the humidity is too high then the air space will be insufficient. Of course if humidity is too low it will also be disastrous as well because the membranes will be tough to pierce. Using diluted hydrogen peroxide on commercial eggs I can't imagine would do any harm, so I would recommend it. On the rooster note, a single fertilization lasts 14 days, so even if your fella isn't very frisky, it doesn't take much to have fertile eggs. With mail order eggs in general I would warn that they can get "scrambled" in transit. One thought about natural incubation (ie with a hen) - it has excellent success in my experience. Though I often have hens that are clueless when it comes to taking care of the chicks. I've even had hens attempt to kill the chicks that hatch because the instinct is merely to incubate eggs and seems to end there. Once the chick hatches the hen seems to consider it competition and tries to kill it. As for latex paint being toxic, that really depends on the paint and what other additives are used. If you want to seal holes in an incubator, I'd recommend food, medical, or aquarium grade silicone caulk. That can often be found at hardware stores, but if not, it can be found online. If an incubator is made of wood then I could see value in sealing it with latex paint. If it's made of plastic then I don't see the value due to already very low permeability. If the paint is white it will better reflect the infrared energy of a light bulb, but the convection cycle itself will do a good job already, especially with high humidity as a thermal catalyst. Best of luck!
You may have noticed I have half moon covers on my holes for fresh air. This allows variable ventilation. You might consider putting some laminated cardboard or something similar around some of the holes to adjust air intake, as long as it isn't too restricted. Really though, inside a conditioned space like your house, you should be able to hold humidity pretty well. Again it it's vitally important to hold perfect humidity. The most important part is ensuring the amount of liquid within the egg is balanced. This chart is a good reference: www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/5484238/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL
I'm going to call BS on not mixing full size and bantam eggs. They have roughly if not the same incubation time. You can also mix incubation times and stagger hatches - I've done it dozens of times. I've been incubating/raising full size and bantam together for years, even cross breeding frequently. They can be mixed - just make sure the eggs get turned (automatic turners are often size specific). If you have to hand turn, draw a point with a marker to keep track of position. People also talk about turning eggs many times daily. They can be turned once a day in my experience without problems. I've also NOT turned them much at all. They still hatch but the chicks will be kind of lopsided. They will even out over time though. I'd still recommend turning often if you can, but if you can't it's not a deal breaker. As for the humidity, just try to keep it matching the chart. It can fluctuate wildly - not a problem. The main thing is to avoid it being too humid that when you candle the air pocket is too small, and being so dry that the air pocket is way too big. It's actually safer to be on the dry side, but the drier, the more you risk having to do an intervention, which is very tricky. If they're too wet, there's a good chance the embryo won't hatch and the chick won't survive. You can completely screw up humidity as long as it's roughly the correct liquid level inside the egg in the last 3-5 days. If it dries out too much, the ambient or direct humidity will absorb and change the liquid level. If the liquid level is too high, you can lower humidity and it will dry out more. The embryo will not die if the humidity is screwed up, unless it's really dramatically screwed up. You can still intervene when too wet or dry and save a life, but be prepared to have their death on your hands - especially if you've never done it before. The first several times you fail is deeply saddening. One thing that's helpful if you do have to intervene is a clotting powder for birds. It's incredibly easy to break the blood vessels in the membrane, but you can clot that spot using a powder. I've even used some fine sand in a pinch. If you don't help it clot with light pressure or powder, they will almost always die. Preferably you get the timing perfect and just have to help a tiny bit. It's too complicated to post more about in the comments, but there are dozens of pages about this process on the backyardchickens forum. I've also used vaseline in a pinch to keep the exposed membrane from drying out. I would not cover the whole egg with vaseline though, even during the hatching process. Anyway, hatching and intervention is a really complicated topic that has to happen in a very specific sequence with specific timing. It's too much to talk about fully here, but I've read much about it on backyardchicken forums. Good luck!
Everything becomes an equilibrium in terms of humidity. Again, I would just focus on the chart in terms of targets and not worry too much until near the end (maybe candle at 10 days, then 15 days). In the video I mentioned I keep humidity 30-40% until around day 15 when I move them into the secondary incubator that lacks a turner. Your memory is correct - 15 days "lockdown". In the video I'm using multiple incubators to stagger the hatches for a constant stream of chicks. If you only have one incubator then you pretty much need to do everything at once to make sure they are at the correct air pocket size at the right time. Nature is resilient and things don't need to be perfect. Even with poor incubation management the strongest birds will still hatch. (or the ones in the best position in terms of heat / humidity / etc.) :)
One of my hens laid 6 eggs outside our property, never knew about it until today. It's been raining for the past few nights and the eggs ofc got wet. I'd love to hear your advice about his matter. Are those eggs still good for incubation or neh?
I have real world experience with this. I had a huge clutch of about 50 guinea fowl eggs that were rained on and sat on by a broody hen for about a week. I was hopeful and incubated them. About a month in they began exploding from microbes generating gas inside. Not a single one had embryo growth. You can try it, but in my experience rain plus dirty chicken butt equals exploding eggs. I say this having successfully incubated eggs with actual poop on them many times. Something about getting wet and left out allows penetration of infection substantially more. If you do give it a try, let me know how it goes. You can candle them after a week or two and toss them before they begin exploding/spreading infection. Good luck!
someguyinncarolina thank you so much for replying. I'm gonna try to clean them first and disinfect as you do in this video. I'll definitely let you know how it goes.
@@someoneinncarolina I've never suffered the trauma of an egg explosion and I hope I never do. Gross!!! The leaky, weepy eggs are bad enough. I've been using the H2O2 spray for a couple of years and it has improved my hatch percentage. Some still die during incubation tho. Mostly crested ducks, but those are dicey anyhow. Thanks for posting these tips. I'm reviewing what I know and looking for new information because I was gifted 100 bob white eggs for hatching. They're going in later today once I've removed the chicks and sanitized the incubator.
Yes. I've hatched eggs covered in poop by cleaning them a little. Surprisingly I've also hatched eggs covered in poop without cleaning them. Sometimes you get lucky. :) That said, if an egg has been exposed to water and sat for a day or two, you are likely going to have infection in that egg, covered in poop or not. If much time has passed with wet conditions then the water acts as a catalyst to transfer infection from the outside to the inside. So even if you clean them with hydrogen peroxide before setting, it is unlikely to succeed when there is a history of getting wet with water for more than a short time.
Sorry this video was from quite a while back and I cannot recall the nuance details. I think simply ensuring accuracy is most important with temperature, so I always used an additional temp/humidity sensor against the temp sensor with the microcontroller that modulated temperature. Humidity I tend to run dry until near the end, but the only sure way to know is based on measuring the air space with candling the egg. People tend to try and follow a particular humidity as a rule of thumb, but I've had too much humidity back fire as well. Too dry and they have a hard time pipping, too wet and the internal pip will cause them to drown during hatch process. It's tricky if your environmental controls are not very accurate... the best thing is to nail down a process that works best for your environment and equipment. :)
One of the reasons I haven't "open sourced" these incubator designs is because I designed (CAD) and CNC milled some of the parts. The vents were milled from my design. That said, in a pinch you can use any kind of sliding panel or drill a couple large holes in some rounds of plastic or wood to create something similar. :)
someguyinncarolina thank you! I will try this I know ducks eggs can be really dirty so I did not know if it would work or not. Yes and only spray the one time with the peroxide. Thank you
I directly spray with distilled water because it's a simple way to increase humidity / liquid level within the eggs. It's not a requirement if your humidity control is sufficient. In this video I was incubating in sub freezing temperatures which required a lot of heat energy. This caused significant drying. I have sprayed directly with distilled water many times and can confirm it will not cause issues with hatch rate. Though, if the chicks have pipped you will want to avoid getting water in their mouths / nostrils - check near the end of the incubation cycle to make sure.
I did a video about my incubators here: ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html However, there wasn't enough interest for me to bother documenting my particular design. Here is a link to some other incubator designs that might be helpful: www.backyardchickens.com/articles/homemade-chicken-egg-incubator-designs-pictures.47737/ Good luck! Thanks for the comment!
I think that should be fine as long as it is around 3% solution. That said, there probably won't be any benefit to the embryo after it has already gone through major development.
Saline has salts and other additives, which accumulate as water evaporates, but the salts remain. I think you may end up pickling the embryos potentially. I would avoid that personally.
One lady said tilt the eggs from side to side when storing them to keep the chicken from sticking on hatch day. Coyotes use to steal my chickens but after I got my dog they never came back. She was just a puppy and she scared 3 of them off. You should get a dog to protect you chickens so they can free range to eat worm and bug and all the yuck yuck stuff the enjoy.
The engineering is really complicated compared to some simpler designs you can find on BackYardChickens. That said, my next incubator I plan to "dumb down" using more stock components, and I will make a video about that. :)
That would be SO appreciated if you found time to do that. I know there’s smart folks around so I wouldn’t be worried about instructions on your cooler set ups as they are now. But I understand maybe you’d like to keep some creativity of engendering for yourself. Either ones appreciated and will be used by me and many as you can tell!
I forget to like this video been using Hydrogen peroxide 3% since I saw this video - works great for me!!! Thanks
I just want to say again your ideas are great. As you can see I am in the comments from two years ago and tried this and had a good success rate and Everytime I've incubated since. Tomorrow I am going to start incubating somebody else's eggs to get new blood in my flock. I shared this video with her as she is new to selling eggs and incubating and only getting a 60% rate. I gave her some tips too. I saw in another video that you should wash eggs so I tried that with a batch of my bantam eggs and I don't know that it made a difference I still sprayed with peroxide after washing and had a good success rate but this time I will only spray with peroxide just because I prefer. Keep up the great videos!
Thanks for showing your appreciation!
I started wiping eggs down with hydrogen peroxide last year ad my hatch rate really improved.
I've been using the 3% Hp for a couple of years on my plants too. It seems to make them healthy and I don't have the same level of moulds. It also helps to keep the birds off the buds on my fruit trees too.
Interesting. I'll keep that in mind for my pumpkin plants this summer. Thanks for sharing!
@@someoneinncarolina your projects are AWESOME!
Thank You!
If hatching dirty eggs…..or not, is that right, you never use cloth or other to remove dirt?
Yes plants,eggs and fish tanks and fish eggs
It's good for fish eggs in a breeder box that I hatch them out in. And I add a little in the fish tank too. All eggs need to be clean just before hatching. Chickens, snakes..
I got a goose egg from someone today... Just one... I wanted to give it the best chance of hatching and found your video! Thank you so much!! Wish me luck 😊
Goose eggs after 4 days you set it have to make sure to spray with warm water 2 times a day and flip eggs 180 turn . Do better in incubators with fans. Egg should lye on side needs to rotate 4 x a day. Temp should be 100 humidity 55% for goose eggs.
Depending on size of egg should hatch day 27 - 32 . If large goose will hatch day 35. lock down day 26 larger birds day 27, Lots on internet can read. Lock down humidity goes up to 75% , when PIP breaks egg shell drop temp 98 can take 3 days to hatch, don't interfere . Good luck hope gosling hatches for you.
Hope to see more videos from your channel soon! I see that you haven’t posted in a while but I wanted to say that I love the name of your channel and how informative you are! 🙌🏻
My daughter lives in Fletcher N.C. I got a Brinsea eco 2 incubator for Christmas and ordered the small egg semi-automatic plate for quail. Will be hatching in the Spring.
Very cool!
Thanks! Had not thought of peroxide till now. Interesting that anyone was able to get a patent on the process since peroxide is readily available everywhere and it seems it would be almost impossible to enforce such a patent. But stranger things have happened, I’m sure! Will give the peroxide a try next incubation. Thanks again!
Hatching eggs are always exciting and interesting..thank you for the tips
Premier1 chicken netting! It's a must. Have 65 chickens, haven't lost a single bird to predation of any kind.
Awesome!
It's a lot cheaper than rebuilding your flock!
I’ve been using Premier1 since the birds have been outside, not a single predator loss
I've freed a stuck chick by pouring a 1/2 teaspoon of luke warm water into the shell. The chick came right out. If your coops can be locked up at night it would really help to stop raccoons etc. I liked the video, very helpful.
Nice tip! I've used distilled water a little as a tool, but it's worth noting that you need to avoid it getting in their mouth/nose potentially. I've seen baby chicks drown in small amounts of water.
STOP facing your coops to the outside, face them to the inside of your yard. You have them facing the direction the predators are coming from! It's like an "open" invitation!
The best in-depth video on incubating... Thanks
One of the best video I've ever seen about hatching egg info.Great video glad I found it keep up the good work.
Hey just enjoyed watching your video! I live in north ga, so we’re not at long way from one another. Really enjoyed watching your info on hatching eggs! Thank you!
I’m Glad I found you! You have a lot of knowledge. I’m gonna Try this out! Done Question tho, Can I spray them as soon as Inpick them before storing them? Or only spray them a Day before incubating them?
I always thought that peroxide ate up any dead protein like dead skin . I never heard it was that sterilization process, so that’s new , I’ll do some research on that patent , thank you !
that music and croaking frog are crazy-making.
The patent would have expired 17 or 20 years after it was granted (US patent law changed in 1993, and since this patent was granted prior to that, it could be of either duration). In ether case, it expired no later than 2010 so this method is no longer patented...
...so use it to your hearts content!
Thanks for looking into it!
Its a recent patent. Go read it.
@@lmp7179 Patent was approved in 1990. Sui is correct on it's free use today.
I saw on a commercial post that they do use a disinfectant on the egg shells before starting the incubation. The bad stuff can go through the pores of the shells giving you fewer hatching out. I think that is what you have found out using the peroxide which is great. I'm going to try it myself. You can drink food grade peroxide which I have in my frig.
Hi Barry. I've have read about various disinfectants and none of them sounded as good as diluted hydrogen peroxide. My normal hatch without hydrogen peroxide was not nearly as good. I would warn that I have only tested around 3% hydrogen peroxide and the stuff in your fridge may be higher in concentration. I would also warn that hydrogen peroxide is not something I would recommend drinking... get a little of the 3% stuff on your hands and it will burn your skin even at that concentration after a few minutes. You can see discoloration from the tissue damage on your skin. Imagine that inside your mouth/throat/stomach - it's not going to kill you, but it will cause damage to tissues. I'm sure you get that warning a lot though and have already considered pros / cons before making the decision to drink it (if indeed that's what you do with it). Thanks for the comment!
@@someoneinncarolina for those with cancer, I've heard/read it has a benefit. I just can't remember the details. My neighbor did it for a while again can't remember specifics. He battled leukemia I think but has passed after 10 years. I went through pancreatic cancer so was in tune with all the things.
I have done half brown (originial) listerine and half water and sprayed the eggs and they did fine.
First video I've seen by you. It's awesome!
Thank you!
someguyinncarolina you're welcome 😊😊
@@someoneinncarolina sir can I clean eggs by sanitizer coz sanitizer also kills bacteria yess.please reply sir😭😭😷🙏🙏🙏
@@janampariyar581 "Sanitizer" is not a thing, it is many things. I could not make a recommendation based upon that; however, generally I would not recommend anything other than peroxide at the proper dilution.
Thanks for removing the other incorrect post. I was going there to do that so no one used that by accident.You beat me to it.. :)
Great video! Thanks for sharing your process. Learned a lot.
5 days ago before incubating, I diluted bleach and clean my poopy eggs. Got no clue what will happen. I am hoping for the best. But hydrogen peroxide seems to be a better choice, I will try that next incubation.
Thanks a lot bro. This is really awesome. What are your humidity and temperature settings for day 1-18 as well as for lockdown?
Seen my grandfather back in 90s use kitty litter he would wash it and soak it an pour all over the bottom of incubator and would wash eggs with diluted vinegar he had 90 percent plus hatch rate
Wow, never heard of that. Very interesting!
Its not going to hurt your spray bottle, I’ve been using it for years, pouring the peroxide directly into the spray bottle for general disinfecting. It’s probably the disinfecting that increases the hatch rate
The peroxide method has a higher hatch rate than formaldehyde and other common forms of disinfectant according to the patent, so I think there is more to it, but it could simply be weakening the shell a little, etc. Thanks for the tip about the bottle... I had a bottle fail but I can't recall if it was alcohol, peroxide, or something else. :)
The peroxide needs to be stored in a dark container or it will lose its effectiveness.
Works on seeds as well lol you can also spray with 50/50 water and original Listerine
Setting up some serama eggs.Saw you video very helpful and informative. I prefer the dry incubation as well. I was curious regarding using deionized water if there is no harm. The help the chick power thru the shells easier.
Hi Again. I am back with new questions. I also wanted to let you know that I think your peroxide spraying was a great idea and I set 36 of my own eggs in the incubator (I took into consideration of what you said about getting shipped eggs and then the cost for scrambled eggs-but I did want some different breeds and new blood) . On day 10, 34 out of 36 were fertile
Was your question cut off? It appears like your whole comment was not posted.
No I was distracted and then by accident clicked reply but I finished my comment above
@@jennifergordon8113 i think we all wanted more of the story!
You are using the smarter survivalist birds. The off spring should be more apt to avoid the predators. I like hatching birds in the winter too. Harder to get the eggs before they get to cold. They are ready early in the year to start laying. April or May instead of June-August they should start laying. I start middle of Dec and have hens ready for buyers who want them to lay soon. Great video. The ones that you help that are a little slow. Just keep pestering and rubbing them with your finger. They will catch up sooner that way. In my opinion. Will have to try this peroxide spray.
Glad to hear from another experienced hatcher! Thanks for the comment. :)
We find that it takes 24 hours for a chicken to produce/lay it's next egg !
I can almost time when I pick all my eggs...
12 blue orpingtons lay around noon daily !
Bard rocks done laying before noon !
The Silky's lay before I get out for the morning feed !
Plenty of boxes.....
Plenty of room....
Always in coop or pen.....
Yet they lay in shifts ?
I feed n water 3 times a day....
95% Layer mash,
5% mix of black sunflower'seed
Wheat, corn, oats meal worms & maggots..... &......
baked & crushed egg shells !
(so they are unrecognizable, almost powder)
I'll be in Fletcher NC in 3 weeks. I have a Brinsea eco to hatch quail eggs with my granddaughter.
Sounds like a good time!
Thank you so much for this video! I've tried your method and my hatch rate was the best one yet! My question to you is, do you pre-wash the eggs before incubation? And then spray them with the peroxide solution? Or do you NOT wash the eggs before incubation and just spray with the peroxide solution?
You should never "wash" the eggs because it destroys the natural protective layer of microbes. Though obviously the peroxide will act similarly, it skips a step. If you wash with water you will create a catalyst for infiltration of microbes, where as the peroxide diluted with distilled water acts similarly it also sterilizes simultaneously. I have successfully hatched eggs covered in poop. I have NOT successfully hatched eggs that were exposed to water for long periods of time. Water is a very tricky variable when it comes to incubation. :)
Hi any brand Will do sir? As long it's 3% right?
@@mslmusic9035 Correct - as long as it doesn't have additives like fragrances, etc. which I haven't ever seen honestly.
After subdivisions began to be built in the surrounding area I had to replace my flock at least once a year. It really stung when the coyotes too my pullets that were due to start laying within the month. :(
I bought a LGD puppy and @ 6 months they got her, too! So, I talked with TAMU and reworked my fencing (to contain the dogs) and got 2 more LGD puppies.
No more losses to predators on land.
There is an alligator in the pond that I still haven't figured out how to deal with. It's tried to grab the dogs several times and I am missing ducks. I have very wary ducks that seldom ever go into the pond anymore.
Electric wire fencing and 15 lbs or more fishing line criss crossed over run.
😮holy cow! Can you shoot that gator?
@@heatherk8931 My X shot him and it rolled. 2 days later....Gator. The same one? I think so just looking at the face.
But, that was in June 2022.
The wild birds have started moving home and the Yard Birds are only staying on the edge of the banks. I'm thinkin' sumthin's hinky. If even the 'Whistlers' won't go in the water????Might be a problem in the water. JS
Can you do a video on those home made incubators I see you made
I have a basic video about it, but it's way to technical for most people. I am hoping to come back around to this and do a more basic design that doesn't require people to be engineers to make it. :) ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html
@@someoneinncarolina or instead of assuming everyone is too stupid, just show how it’s made anyway? You engineers are just too smart eh?
@@passionfruiter3184 Not about smart vs. stupid - about time to thoroughly document something complicated. It's not like there aren't hundreds of open source incubator plans out there already.
There's a patent on them. Lol
I’m impressed by these incubators made from skies. Is there another video on this??
Do a video of how to save chicks that have trouble hatching.
Thx for sharing your knowledge
I've been kind of worried about the last stage of hatching and the humidity which is what you had with the chick stuck in the shell. I notice on the commercial hatchery process that when they go to lock down they bring on the humidity... I noticed this because their temperature dropped which always happens when you raise the humidity. So, I'm going to throw out the 99.5 temperature must have... and raise my humidity as they did and see how it goes.
The temperature dipping a little lower is not a big deal. When the temperature gets too high it is a really big deal. I think your hatch will be fine. :)
Geeze you are smart. I have the worst hatch rates ever with my silkies. I got 2 decent chicks out of 15 eggs. The hatch was a total disaster.
That is pretty low... try a rinse with hydrogen peroxide initially when setting the eggs and see if it improves. My guess is your humidity might be too high or too low. You can tell by candling to check the air space in the egg. If the air space is too small it means they are saturated in water (humidity too high). If the air space is too large it means they will have a hard time breaking through the membrane and egg shell (humidity too low). It's also possible it's related to genetics, but usually it's the conditions. If your hens get broody you can use one to incubate the eggs alternatively. I have excellent luck with broody hens... except once the eggs hatch they are often terrible mothers. Good luck!
@@someoneinncarolina Thanks for the tips. I think the humidity may have been too low. I tried a "dry" hatch. I kept the humidity around 45%. I started my higher humidity level at day 18. I will do it sooner after watching your video and for sure try the hydrogen peroxide trick. Two out of the 4 that hatched needed help getting out of the shell so I should probably not do a dry hatch again. A skunk killed my chickens so I have one silkie hen left. She is beautiful but the worst mom and she never goes broody. That is probably how she survived the attack, she wasn't on a nest being a broody monster. She fled when it all went down.
@@beegirl84
My layers perch up high every night... my Silky's lay first...
barred rocks next, blue orpingtons done just after lunch...!
By then they are all outside....
Guinea's flock protectors !
Just like the turkeys...
Predators 0
Chickens 50+
Please provide me some information on how you build your incubators, thank you!
I did a video about my incubators here:
ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html
However, there wasn't enough interest for me to bother documenting my particular design. Here is a link to some other incubator designs that might be helpful:
www.backyardchickens.com/articles/homemade-chicken-egg-incubator-designs-pictures.47737/
Good luck! Thanks for the comment!
Will you make a video on how you mad your Hatchers? Wow!
Nice video, do you wash the eggs before you spray with Hydrogen peroxide?
Nope.
@@someoneinncarolina I have purchased 3% hydrogen peroxide today, do I need to dilute it with water or not? Thanks for your help
@@ziggye301 No, 3% - 7% hydrogen peroxide is already sufficiently diluted.
@@ziggye301 i wondered, too!
Use a electric hot wire about 6-10 inches off ground on outside of chicken pen will keep fox raccoon. Dogs and any other prediter away. Also find old sain net for fishing to cover open chicken yard( for covering) to keep hawks away.
Good and common advise. Unfortunately I've had plenty of breaches with a hot wire system. The net probably would work to keep hawks away though. :) A lot of things work for different people in different regions - it largely depends on the desperation of the animals at the time.
@@someoneinncarolina easiest
Criss cross 15 lb + fishing line over runs
man congratulations it looks like you been doing it for a while, question i had no success het am n my third attempt, and even after the due date i have left them few day more, and i have broken the eggs to see what happened and there is, nothing, they looked as if there were just old eggs, am leaning towards the eggs are not fertile, now what can i do to get my chickens to fertilized the eggs ?????
Forgive my lack of preconceptions: 1) Your hen is being mated by a rooster, right? Without that, they will never be fertile. Also if the rooster is a lot smaller than the hen, it can prevent successful fertilization. A single mating can fertilize a hen for 2 weeks. 2) If you're storing the eggs in a fridge, stop doing that. A fridge is too cold typically. Try going directly from nest to incubator. Even though this will stagger the hatching, it's not a big deal. 3) Sounds like you don't have a candling light. Buy one, they are cheap. You should be able to see something around 7 days. Check every 5-7 days to watch progress. Have DRY clean hands while handling. Water is an ideal catalyst for contamination. 4) Make sure your incubator isn't running hot; it should be between 99f-102f. Even a couple degrees too hot and they will never develop. Hope that helps!
hell yea you help is greatly appreciate, and yes the i have roosters with the chickens, and about the candling i haven't done it cause i wanted to wait til the end, but am going to check them and again much thanks i learned about water, the hard way, what i do is disinfected the eggs, and keep the eggs in a room at room temp. hey, i know this will be my time, you'll see . will let you know
The point of storing them at 50f (cold) is to extend the period of time you have to activate the eggs. If you're storing the eggs more than a few days at room temperature it can also prevent development of an embryo. If you start incubation immediately you have the highest chance of development. So if your current plan doesn't work, try immediate incubation and staggered hatching.
again thank you, this got to be the right one third time is a charm,
Subscribed and notifications on! Question: do you have a video on how you made those incubators? They look like you made them and they look amazing and very well crafted
I went over it a little in this video way back: ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html
I never had enough interest to justify the effort of documenting the complex circuits and such. My goal this fall or winter is to build a simpler more off the shelf incubator and open source that.
someguyinncarolina thank you so much I really appreciate it. God bless✌🙂
@@someoneinncarolina, did your set up cost a lot to make? I am looking into a cheap, easy way to incubate eggs. I'm totally new to this so I am trying to research.
Ice chests cost lots here so it would probably be easier to buy an incubator online. I also am disabled and don't have tools, so it's a bit hard at times.
Right now, I'm trying a heating pad. So far, the temp and humidity are good. I'm not sure if the eggs are fertilized but since I just started today, I will check in a few days.
Wish me luck! They are button quail eggs. My female was broody up till the last few days. No hatches as of yet so this time, I'm trying.
@@awesomekoga7848 I'd recommend you get an egg candler (bright flashlight basically) to verify embryo development. As long as your heating pad is consistent then you should be fine. In fact, a heating pad is more ideal than using a light bulb because a heating pad does not emit visible light. As for my setup, I want to say it was around $40 per incubator. This required technical expertise, tools, and fabrication skills. Check out the backyard chicken forums for a section on building simple incubators if you're determined to make your own. :) Good luck!
@@awesomekoga7848 often cheap at salvation army and such.
I had collected for feral cat housing out in the cold
I enjoyed your video thank you for making it. I will use the technique of hydrogen peroxide the next time I set my eggs in the incubator I had never thought about this before. It sounds like it would work and I'm willing to give it a try. I will let you know since I have subscribed to your Channel. If anyone ever loved chickens this got to be me. LOL. Well I guess you do to my friend. Once again thanks.
Awesome. Let me know how it goes! :)
someguyinncarolina I most definitely will let you know how hydrogen peroxide worked for me. Thanks buddy.
Sarah Lunafire. I would have to say that the hydrogen peroxide actually does work!! It kills off the bacteria off the egg shell therefore enhances your hatch ability rate. I also would say use distilled water in your incubator. If you use this technique let me know what you think about it.
Listerine (50/50 mix with water) works just as well. I do prefer peroxide over listerine.
Good to know. Though peroxide is going to sterilize a broader range. Your solution will smell much better!
Great video. Thanks
Interesting to watch. I only have one egg. About 2 weeks ago, the electricity shut off. My heart sank. I put on a warm pocket shirt and held the egg inside the pocket. It was off about 60-75 minutes 2:30 in the morning.
I was growing so big inside. Now, I’m concerned because today is the 28th day for the duck egg. I talk to it all the time. It will move at certain angles. My granddaughters are beyond excited about the egg. How long do I wait, before I give up?
It should pip internally to access the air pocket inside the egg, then externally to breath fresh air. Then it should unzip and hatch eventually. I would candle it and monitor it for a few more days. Sometimes eggs hatch 31+ days if the incubation temperature is a bit low.
Result?
Mary, did your duck hatch? I hope so, great story! I think ducks take longer.
1) ramping up humidity 10-15% at day 18 is enough and you won’t create weak birds by helping them
2) don’t give new chicks ACV for the first 4-5 days
Hi! I'm wondering if it's safe to use the hydrogen peroxide process if the eggs aren't going to be incubated for awhile. For example, if you wanted to sanitize them before shipping them out? Thank you!
Because of the minor etching and loss of native flora, I would not personally. I couldn't say with absolute certainty that it would matter though.
Hey! Great video and thanks! I’m adding my request for an incubator tutorial. In fact I’d be delighted to purchase good, clear plans. I’ll bet it would be a winner for you on Amazon for Kindle. If there’s anything credibly done there, I’ve not been able to find it. One thing I have a problem with in the tutorials I’ve watched is that they all seem to assume knowledge I don’t have and often use component names that mean nothing to me and leave me wondering where to source materials.
Hmm... thanks for your input. I hadn't considered publishing plans, but I suppose I could give it a try just to see how it does. Good point on sourcing materials - that is often a challenge. Let me ask you this - how many eggs are you looking to incubate at once?
Some Guy In N Carolina
I’m flexible as to how many eggs. I think it would be great to start with a smaller incubator that could later be used as a hatcher for a cabinet incubator if my poultry addiction gets to that level. So enough room for that, for sure. From my reading on Backyard Chickens I’m guessing a lot of folks go that way. Also I’m justifying my covetousness for an incubator because I’ve pretty much decided to add quail as another meat source. I’d definitely want one for quail, right? ;-) I have geese coming, so there will be goose eggs too, and heritage turkeys.
(I don’t want them to brood if I can help it because I want them all following my cows around their rotational grazing. (Obviously not including the quail.) I realize the turkeys will go where they like, but some folks have told me their turkeys choose to mostly stay inside the poultry netting. I’m okay with mostly. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.)
@@cindyskillman544 Wow, that's ambitious. If your lifestyle and time allows it, you can juggle quite a bit I've found. After my daughter was born I really scaled down my farming activities to just bantam chickens and full chickens, then eventually to just full chickens. I used to do quite a lot of guinea fowl hatching and raising them as well, which is a challenge due to their wildness. I'm also interested in turkeys. My wife has some interest in quail, but they seem a bit small for eating IMO. :) The next incubator design I have in mind is a cabinet style, but for the price point I am hoping to support about 100 eggs and 1 month of raising. We'll see...
Some Guy In N Carolina
I understand about kids. They just take your breath away in so many ways! LOL
We’re retired, so have plenty of time. I’ve always wanted to do this, but life sometimes doesn’t flow where we had planned. Anyway, let me know if you do put something up for Kindle. Your incubators are the best looking ice chest types I’ve seen. Usually they’re really haphazard. Not that that would keep them from working, but it seems like a less-than-good-sign.
@@cindyskillman544 Thanks. The problem with the design of the incubators in this video is that I CNCed some of the parts I designed, and did microcontroller programming for the software controller. It's way too complex for the average person to create from plans. The next design will be all off the shelf parts and an approach that doesn't require high fabrication equipment/skills.
Can you use peroxide after a day of incubation on a couple. Most were clean but I've noticed a few with a little dirt.I have a large batch now I sprayed half a batch from a distance. Hoping to get a good hatch rate. I did not spray as much as you did.
I tried peroxide on my first batch of shipped eggs and had success but on my next batch it was a bad rate. Maybe I didnt use enough?
Any help is appreciated! Tia
You should not spray after incubation has begun, at least not consistently. I have hatched eggs covered in POOP just fine. The main thing is to ensure water does not create a bridge between outside bacteria and inside embryo. Better to stay on the dry side during primary incubation and wet things (with WATER) more near the end after the embryo has mostly formed. I think before incubation has begun, you should use plenty of peroxide (diluted at around 3%) to clean things up. Really think about this process as erasing on a piece of paper. You want to start blank, but you don't want to erase your embryo once it has begun. I can't say for sure the thresholds of at what point in time, or what quantity of peroxide would be OK. Sorry I can't be more helpful off hand. Good luck!
Thank you. I appreciate your responds. I will just let it run. Fingers crossed!
Do you have automatic egg turners in the coolers? Or do you manually task that regularly? Also, where do you buy your electronics for the incubators??? SO MANY QUESTIONS!!! Do you have automatic humidifiers set up in them as well?
opps I'm sorry. I ended up with 23 that hatched. One died but it was weak from the start it was the only one I had to help out of the shell and died like the next day. But the other 22 are currently running around my property. I had NO expectations of that many chicks hatching!!!! lol We have 7 ducks. 1 is a drake. I have not seen any mating going on yet and their near a year old, so I am going to incubate a few to see if they are fertile-their Muscovy ducks. 3 we got as chicks last summer and the other 4 i got as pullets a in the beginning of Feb. The new ones are SO wild they literally flew right out of the run one by one as soon as we took them out of the crate. We had no idea, the person we got them from didn't warn us so we didn't know any better since the 3 we have since babies and they did what the chickens did. Now we have these wild hens that fly to the tip of our roof to sleep at night teaching them bad habits. My honey has this homemade thing he shoots off that sounds like a loud firecracker. He did that once and these ducks flew probably 200-300 feet high in the air. I was afraid they wouldn't come back but they did. So anyways they have taught the existing 3 their wicked ways. now none of them really ever sleep in the coop at night. they lay on the grass. So that also means they rarely lay in the coop leaving me fishing out eggs from everywhere-dirty! But from mud. So can you tell me what to do in this situation ? Am I able to incubate mud dirty eggs at all? Should I wash and spray with peroxide? etc?
If the eggs got wet, it's a dice roll whether they are infected/can hatch. Your best bet is to sterilize with hydrogen peroxide and clean them up, then cross your fingers. I have no experience with ducks, but that behavior sounds a bit like guinea fowl. You might be too late, but you should try keeping them locked in a coop for a couple weeks, then only letting them out just before it gets dark (maybe an hour)... and leave a light on in the coop until they go back in, then shut it off. Continue letting them out a little earlier each day with the light on so they head towards it. Eventually they will automatically come to the coop when it gets dark out.
Ok. Thanks so much! I will give that a try. I don't know if the eggs got wet because they are laid under the roof at the bottom (A frame) but they lay in loose dirt so they are always dirty, but i have found them literally laying in the middle of field and some crazy places too. So yeah, fingers crossed!
@@someoneinncarolina great plan to retrain the ducks! 😅 wow, I have only 6 adults and 2 are roosters, of which 1 runs the hens ragged and they mostly hide. Those I gather at night, after giving a snack put them in the hen house. Probably need to rehome the aggressor
I have egg rollout commercial metal cage design and my quail lay throughout the day. When it's super cold, how do you harvest your hatching eggs? I made cage extention sand box bivouac for my cages and put hay in the sandbox. The quail seem to like to lay in the straw and will even go broody and keep the eggs warm until I can get them in the incubator. I fear letting the eggs get so cold or even freeze, which prevents good hatching eggs
I had the same problem with a fox. It would take a chicken once a week during spring
good info.no hemmhawing around with useless info just to get content..good job
Thanks!
Thanks very helpful!
Do you spray the eggs the entire incubation? Or just the last few days?
The eggs are only sprayed with hydrogen peroxide ONCE at the beginning as an initial sterilization. I couldn't say if there would be any advantage or disadvantage to doing it more than once.
do a video on incubator build
Thanks for sharing. Do you have to mix the hydrogen peroxide with water before spraying, if so how much water to, how much peroxide? Thanks for your information.
"Incidentally" the typical over the counter ratio of water to hydrogen peroxide is already correct in the consumer product. My conclusion is someone just decided to try using OTC hydrogen peroxide and it worked. Astonishing to me that the process can even be patented. So to answer your question more simply, unless you are using lab grade hydrogen peroxide, it is already the correct ratio of water. Thanks.
Actually one other clarification - hydrogen peroxide used for bleaching hair will also not be the correct ratio. Your typical OTC for wound care would be the correct ratio - should say on the back 3-7%. Thanks.
Thanks a million, it's 3% one I got and not the hair bleaching one lol.
Hello there!I have a problem and I need your opinion on something.I put in the incubator 40 phoenix chicken eggs and I got after 21 days only 10 chics.5 chics died in the eggs or soon after they hatched and all the rest were unfertilized eggs.I have a flock of 22 hens.There used to be 4 roosters in the flock and the alpha male was very dominant towards the others.Soon after the disappointing hatch,I got rid of the alpha male and two more roosters and now I got only one.This one is not very active sexually and the alpha male wasnt as well.Why does this happen and how can I make him more fertile?
I haven't personally had this problem with my roosters. Mating is for asserting dominance as much as reproduction... I've even had hens "mate" other hens to display dominance. It's similar to rabbits in that way. That said, there are plenty of people who SWEAR their rooster has never mated their hens, and the eggs are still fertilized. It only takes 1 mating for 14 days of fertile eggs. My guess is your rooster may be particular to certain hens... ie is not mating all of them. So while it appears he is not mating successfully based upon your hatch rate, it's possible he just has a few favorites. How do you force him to mate with all the hens evenly? I'm not sure. :( You can always isolate him with certain hens I suppose. Beyond that, Google will give you a better answer than me, since I have little experience with this issue personally. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Good luck!
Hi.. Can you still hatch fertile eggs refrigerated due to storage issues or incubator currently occupied. Please advise whether refrigerated eggs do hatch and for how many days you may store in a refrigerator.
I just watched a vid last night a young lady had unwittingly refrigerated the eggs and they hatched - don't remember how many but enough she was happy!
Good afternoon, have you hatch turkeys? I need some thoughts on hatching if you have any ideas. Have not had good hatch rate. We live in the mountains about 8300'
Very informative thanks.
Hello. If you had ONLY two choices of 99 degrees Fahrenheit OR 100 degrees Fahrenheit on your forced air incubator which would you choose for Mandarin duck eggs?
I have never incubated ducks; however, I would lean towards slightly cooler (99f). Here is my reasoning: incubators are never fully equal in temperature in all areas due to entropy and thermal conduction - there will be hot spots and cool spots with some variance. Hot spots tend to hatch and develop slightly sooner than cold spots. That said, if you go TOO HOT, it will kill the embryo absolutely, where as if you go slightly too cool, the embryo will survive, but develop more slowly. There is a higher variance of tolerance in cooler conditions than in hotter conditions while still enabling development of the embryo. Therefor I would lean towards cooler. Hope that helps! :)
@@someoneinncarolina sexy intellect!
Nice video, thanks
Hi there! I just stumbled on your channel. I am now following you. Any tips on hatching Muscovy? I just did my first hatch of runners, cayuga and call ducks. I used 50:50 listerine water to prep the eggs and had a 92% hatch rate (beginners luck? maybe).
I can't say I've had experience with anything but Chickens (bantam/full) and Guinea Fowl (fancy/broiler). I would encourage you to try hydrogen peroxide as the sterilizer and tell everyone here how it worked out! :D
someguyinncarolina I will give it a try. I forgot to mention I hatched 3 of 4 silkie eggs (4th was not fertilized) they are 72 hrs old - and I have a 3 week old solo silkie. When do you think I can keep them together? I’ve done supervised visits for half hour both today and yesterday. Precious little things.
That's tricky - chickens grow so fast. Generally I mix them when the little ones can run away from the big ones faster than the big ones can walk on them! I'd guess maybe a week for the little ones.
Thats amazing!! What was the temperature and humidity level of your incubator.
@@someoneinncarolina 1 week is good. I bought 3 buff Orpington chicks when they were available and my 4 chicks hatched out the next week. Amazing to see at 1 week the growth difference! At 1 week for my hatched I started testing them together to see how they did. Hilarious because my hatchling pecked at the older bird right off!😂 3/18/23 birthday (named Paddy, of course). So now I leave together for hours but sleep separate and wet crumbles separately to make sure everyone gets enough. Seems to be working well.
Can I try this after I've already had my eggs set for a couple days? Will it really hurt if it's not right before they go in? I tend not to stress over my bator.
Can't say for sure! I haven't tried it. I imagine as long as you aren't using a copious amount it should be OK.
Do not get the eggs wet during incubation DO NOT!
@@huss9629 I do the floating candling method and things come out fine. :) The key is to not stress. Eggs in nature get rained on, touched by all sorts of bacteria, and more, and still manage to hatch.
I staggered my incubator and left the chicks in the incubator for a day now the remaining eggs are dirty. Do I wash them off? Will they hatch?
Great video! Thank you. Quick question, does this work on duck eggs? Secondly, if I have eggs already in the incubator for 7 days, can I take them out and spray them with HP?
I believe it will work for any eggs; that said a big point of this is to sterilize the surface to help prevent infection during incubation, so after 7 days it may help or it may not. I don't think it will hurt to try it.
What humidity are you at for lockdown?
Lol thanks for info going to try to incubate. 2nd try
Fantastic, thank you 🙏. I’m overwhelmed with tens of subscriptions, and all of them are either farming, gardening, or raising farm all animals, so I end up avoiding to subscribe to channels that are a mix of videos from everything in life out there.
The eggs have a protective bloom. Wouldn't you mess that up or is that not really important?
I would like to know what equipment u used for your incubators
Hey thats my patent
how many vent holes do you have on the incubator how big are the holes
Without actually going outside to measure and count, I want to say there are 3 or 4 holes, maybe 3" diameter. They have variable ventilation using a cover system. So the holes are actually "half" holes to allow the cover to block or open the half hole. Hopefully that makes sense. I will say you don't need A LOT of ventilation for successful hatching, but you need more than a few pencil sized holes. Also, these incubators have fans which force circulation of air.
Can the incubator be off for few hours in a day may b coz of power problem or is there a minimum hours a day that it should be put on
If the temperature is maintained, it can be off indefinitely. The swings in extremes are a real problem... if it's off for 1 second and drops 10 degrees, it's a problem. If it's off 1 day and drops 1 degree, it's fine. The amount of time has some importance, but in general you want to minimize extreme swings. If you dropped 5 degrees, I would probably try to minimize it to no more than a few hours. Basically it will cause them to take longer to develop, or be too weak to hatch successfully, or simply stop developing, all depending on how extreme the swings are and the duration. Hope that helps.
I am sorry I should have been more clear in my question. I have been having trouble getting comments thru so i made it brief figuring it wouldn't go thru. What I meant was when you spray the eggs and walls of incubator with distilled water, are you doing that the whole way thru incubation or just during lockdown? And approximately how many times a day are you spraying them?
I fill the bottom of the incubator with some tap water always, and I spray once a day with distilled water until near the end of the incubation when I spray maybe twice a day or so. Basically I just spray when I'm checking up on things. This was also a winter incubation so the heaters ran more and hence things were very dry. In other conditions you wouldn't need to spray as much. These incubators were basically out in the open (gable venting) in an unconditioned space, fighting below freezing temperatures. Use a humidistat to verify whether you need more or less moisture. I don't think you need to be as strict as some people say about humidity parameters - they varied widely during incubation and I still had very high success rates hatching when using hydrogen peroxide. As with many things people tend to be dogmatic to a fault without doing real experimentation to verify assumptions. I've broken many "rules" when incubating and still had high success.
Thanks. My findings are based on years of experimentation, though I never intentionally do harm. I will warn about sealing up an incubator - it MUST have some air flow, and I don't mean a few small holes. If your incubator is sealed up dramatically, the chicks may hatch, but they may have deformities. I figured that out the hard way with an early design that had around 6x 1/4" holes total - not enough. I was also trying to meet the standards of humidity that others talk about. There is actually such a thing as too much humidity as well... the embryo when doing the internal pip must have sufficient air space to develop lungs. If the humidity is too high then the air space will be insufficient. Of course if humidity is too low it will also be disastrous as well because the membranes will be tough to pierce.
Using diluted hydrogen peroxide on commercial eggs I can't imagine would do any harm, so I would recommend it. On the rooster note, a single fertilization lasts 14 days, so even if your fella isn't very frisky, it doesn't take much to have fertile eggs. With mail order eggs in general I would warn that they can get "scrambled" in transit.
One thought about natural incubation (ie with a hen) - it has excellent success in my experience. Though I often have hens that are clueless when it comes to taking care of the chicks. I've even had hens attempt to kill the chicks that hatch because the instinct is merely to incubate eggs and seems to end there. Once the chick hatches the hen seems to consider it competition and tries to kill it.
As for latex paint being toxic, that really depends on the paint and what other additives are used. If you want to seal holes in an incubator, I'd recommend food, medical, or aquarium grade silicone caulk. That can often be found at hardware stores, but if not, it can be found online. If an incubator is made of wood then I could see value in sealing it with latex paint. If it's made of plastic then I don't see the value due to already very low permeability. If the paint is white it will better reflect the infrared energy of a light bulb, but the convection cycle itself will do a good job already, especially with high humidity as a thermal catalyst.
Best of luck!
You may have noticed I have half moon covers on my holes for fresh air. This allows variable ventilation. You might consider putting some laminated cardboard or something similar around some of the holes to adjust air intake, as long as it isn't too restricted. Really though, inside a conditioned space like your house, you should be able to hold humidity pretty well. Again it it's vitally important to hold perfect humidity. The most important part is ensuring the amount of liquid within the egg is balanced. This chart is a good reference:
www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/5484238/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL
I'm going to call BS on not mixing full size and bantam eggs. They have roughly if not the same incubation time. You can also mix incubation times and stagger hatches - I've done it dozens of times. I've been incubating/raising full size and bantam together for years, even cross breeding frequently. They can be mixed - just make sure the eggs get turned (automatic turners are often size specific).
If you have to hand turn, draw a point with a marker to keep track of position. People also talk about turning eggs many times daily. They can be turned once a day in my experience without problems. I've also NOT turned them much at all. They still hatch but the chicks will be kind of lopsided. They will even out over time though. I'd still recommend turning often if you can, but if you can't it's not a deal breaker.
As for the humidity, just try to keep it matching the chart. It can fluctuate wildly - not a problem. The main thing is to avoid it being too humid that when you candle the air pocket is too small, and being so dry that the air pocket is way too big. It's actually safer to be on the dry side, but the drier, the more you risk having to do an intervention, which is very tricky. If they're too wet, there's a good chance the embryo won't hatch and the chick won't survive. You can completely screw up humidity as long as it's roughly the correct liquid level inside the egg in the last 3-5 days. If it dries out too much, the ambient or direct humidity will absorb and change the liquid level. If the liquid level is too high, you can lower humidity and it will dry out more. The embryo will not die if the humidity is screwed up, unless it's really dramatically screwed up.
You can still intervene when too wet or dry and save a life, but be prepared to have their death on your hands - especially if you've never done it before. The first several times you fail is deeply saddening. One thing that's helpful if you do have to intervene is a clotting powder for birds. It's incredibly easy to break the blood vessels in the membrane, but you can clot that spot using a powder. I've even used some fine sand in a pinch. If you don't help it clot with light pressure or powder, they will almost always die. Preferably you get the timing perfect and just have to help a tiny bit. It's too complicated to post more about in the comments, but there are dozens of pages about this process on the backyardchickens forum.
I've also used vaseline in a pinch to keep the exposed membrane from drying out. I would not cover the whole egg with vaseline though, even during the hatching process. Anyway, hatching and intervention is a really complicated topic that has to happen in a very specific sequence with specific timing. It's too much to talk about fully here, but I've read much about it on backyardchicken forums. Good luck!
Everything becomes an equilibrium in terms of humidity. Again, I would just focus on the chart in terms of targets and not worry too much until near the end (maybe candle at 10 days, then 15 days). In the video I mentioned I keep humidity 30-40% until around day 15 when I move them into the secondary incubator that lacks a turner. Your memory is correct - 15 days "lockdown". In the video I'm using multiple incubators to stagger the hatches for a constant stream of chicks. If you only have one incubator then you pretty much need to do everything at once to make sure they are at the correct air pocket size at the right time. Nature is resilient and things don't need to be perfect. Even with poor incubation management the strongest birds will still hatch. (or the ones in the best position in terms of heat / humidity / etc.) :)
One of my hens laid 6 eggs outside our property, never knew about it until today. It's been raining for the past few nights and the eggs ofc got wet. I'd love to hear your advice about his matter. Are those eggs still good for incubation or neh?
I have real world experience with this. I had a huge clutch of about 50 guinea fowl eggs that were rained on and sat on by a broody hen for about a week. I was hopeful and incubated them. About a month in they began exploding from microbes generating gas inside. Not a single one had embryo growth. You can try it, but in my experience rain plus dirty chicken butt equals exploding eggs. I say this having successfully incubated eggs with actual poop on them many times. Something about getting wet and left out allows penetration of infection substantially more. If you do give it a try, let me know how it goes. You can candle them after a week or two and toss them before they begin exploding/spreading infection. Good luck!
someguyinncarolina thank you so much for replying. I'm gonna try to clean them first and disinfect as you do in this video. I'll definitely let you know how it goes.
@@someoneinncarolina I've never suffered the trauma of an egg explosion and I hope I never do. Gross!!! The leaky, weepy eggs are bad enough. I've been using the H2O2 spray for a couple of years and it has improved my hatch percentage. Some still die during incubation tho. Mostly crested ducks, but those are dicey anyhow.
Thanks for posting these tips. I'm reviewing what I know and looking for new information because I was gifted 100 bob white eggs for hatching. They're going in later today once I've removed the chicks and sanitized the incubator.
I love my Bobwhite quail (100). Make sure you separate the hens from the roos because in the spring the boys get pretty mean.
Can you wash, and clean dirty eggs with the peroxide right before setting them. Thanks in advance..
Yes. I've hatched eggs covered in poop by cleaning them a little. Surprisingly I've also hatched eggs covered in poop without cleaning them. Sometimes you get lucky. :) That said, if an egg has been exposed to water and sat for a day or two, you are likely going to have infection in that egg, covered in poop or not. If much time has passed with wet conditions then the water acts as a catalyst to transfer infection from the outside to the inside. So even if you clean them with hydrogen peroxide before setting, it is unlikely to succeed when there is a history of getting wet with water for more than a short time.
My eggs have been in for 3 days can I still spray them at this point
good day sir what is your incubator parameters during 1-18 days temp and humidity?and until lockdown?thanks so much
Sorry this video was from quite a while back and I cannot recall the nuance details. I think simply ensuring accuracy is most important with temperature, so I always used an additional temp/humidity sensor against the temp sensor with the microcontroller that modulated temperature. Humidity I tend to run dry until near the end, but the only sure way to know is based on measuring the air space with candling the egg. People tend to try and follow a particular humidity as a rule of thumb, but I've had too much humidity back fire as well. Too dry and they have a hard time pipping, too wet and the internal pip will cause them to drown during hatch process. It's tricky if your environmental controls are not very accurate... the best thing is to nail down a process that works best for your environment and equipment. :)
Do you dilute the peroxide at all or just Spray it straight from the bottle?
It's already diluted between 3% - 7%, so no need to dilute further. If you have more concentration you should dilute accordingly to reach that range.
Where did you get the vents I can't find any.
One of the reasons I haven't "open sourced" these incubator designs is because I designed (CAD) and CNC milled some of the parts. The vents were milled from my design. That said, in a pinch you can use any kind of sliding panel or drill a couple large holes in some rounds of plastic or wood to create something similar. :)
Can you spray duck eggs with hydrogen peroxide to help with hatch rate?
I don't see why not. You only need to do it one time at first though, not repeatedly (some people were confused on this note).
someguyinncarolina thank you! I will try this I know ducks eggs can be really dirty so I did not know if it would work or not. Yes and only spray the one time with the peroxide. Thank you
You spray everything down with the distilled water at lockdown day 15?
I directly spray with distilled water because it's a simple way to increase humidity / liquid level within the eggs. It's not a requirement if your humidity control is sufficient. In this video I was incubating in sub freezing temperatures which required a lot of heat energy. This caused significant drying. I have sprayed directly with distilled water many times and can confirm it will not cause issues with hatch rate. Though, if the chicks have pipped you will want to avoid getting water in their mouths / nostrils - check near the end of the incubation cycle to make sure.
Day 18??
I'll need a little more elaboration to comment. :)
@@someoneinncarolina Most don't raise humidity til Lockdown, day 18.
I have been using 1 litre water inside incubator .
Can i add some drops hydrohen peroxide to the humidity waterinside the incubator?
Nice video.question how can I make a incubator light this ones that you have.
I did a video about my incubators here:
ua-cam.com/video/Bzeh2fSxhnI/v-deo.html
However, there wasn't enough interest for me to bother documenting my particular design. Here is a link to some other incubator designs that might be helpful:
www.backyardchickens.com/articles/homemade-chicken-egg-incubator-designs-pictures.47737/
Good luck! Thanks for the comment!
Thanks men.
Oops. I just put the eggs straight into the incubator.
I wonder how Star San would work, vs vinegar, vs hydrogen peroxide.
Can you use peroxide after you put them in the incubator please respond ASAP thank you so much 🙏
I think that should be fine as long as it is around 3% solution. That said, there probably won't be any benefit to the embryo after it has already gone through major development.
Some Guy In N Carolina thank you! Also I just put them in today
How many times you turn the egg every day?
Any thoughts on using sterile saline water as a substitute for deionized water?
Saline has salts and other additives, which accumulate as water evaporates, but the salts remain. I think you may end up pickling the embryos potentially. I would avoid that personally.
Wait!so u briefly mentioned that it was diluted. Are you saying that bottle u used of HP had half of distilled water in it? Thank you!
No, HP is diluted already, typically down to around 3%. It says the % of HP on the bottle.
Some Guy In N Carolina wooowoww I’m a donkey!lmao thank u. I’m setting eggs as we speak so I really appreciate ur quick af response!!
One lady said tilt the eggs from side to side when storing them to keep the chicken from sticking on hatch day. Coyotes use to steal my chickens but after I got my dog they never came back. She was just a puppy and she scared 3 of them off. You should get a dog to protect you chickens so they can free range to eat worm and bug and all the yuck yuck stuff the enjoy.
Can you make a vid of how you made your your incubator please? Am wanting to get a good sturdy incubator
The engineering is really complicated compared to some simpler designs you can find on BackYardChickens. That said, my next incubator I plan to "dumb down" using more stock components, and I will make a video about that. :)
That would be SO appreciated if you found time to do that. I know there’s smart folks around so I wouldn’t be worried about instructions on your cooler set ups as they are now. But I understand maybe you’d like to keep some creativity of engendering for yourself. Either ones appreciated and will be used by me and many as you can tell!