Incubation advice

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Double R

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So we’re going to give some of our eggs a try. Praying our old rooster is still making babies. We’ve been waiting for a broody hen but haven’t had one in a long time so I want to give some eggs a go and see what happens.
We’ve always let broody hens raise chicks or purchased chicks and put them under a broody hen.
We have a brand new in the box farm innovations pro series model 4200 I got on clearance when our go to farm supply went out of business. Really hoping it works. Been sitting in the barn for years.
Any advice on incubating eggs would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks all!
 
I have a small octagon unit. I have to turn it three times a day and keep water in it's little canals (about once a week) so it increases humidity. The temp is set to 99 degrees. Chicken eggs are 21 days, turkeys and ducks are 28. Right now I have 10 turkey eggs in and six chicken eggs in. I put the chicken eggs in after the turkey eggs were in a week so that they will hatch about the same time. Three days before hatching, I take the rods out that hold the eggs still and I stop the three times a day rotating. Then cross my fingers. Chicks can hatch out in the three day span. I let them hatch, dry off in the incubator, then move them to a rubbermade tub with a heat lamp attached. I dip their beaks in water right away, and sprinkle feed on the ground. They learn fast. Our son had a larger incubator that he got at Tractor. It held maybe 50 or so eggs, but we could never keep the heat just right in it, or the humidity. It seemed to leak air. Bad hatch rates.
 
@Amish Heart Thank you so much as always for the knowledge!
I’m guessing you are raising home eggs? How do you go from coop to incubator? I’m seeing so much mixed info on methods from coop to incubator. Cleaning. No cleaning. Only can collect eggs for 5 days then they have to be in the incubator or tossed. Some say 7 days. Some say they have to be stored point up some say point down. Some says point down in the incubator some say in their side which I’m not sure can happen in this one.
Also how crazy do we have to get on sanitizing everything including the eggs?
This incubator does have a fan in it and a auto turner. It’s currently running empty with the water in it to see if we can get it to stay consistent. Figure that was safest. Need to collect eggs from the coop anyways.
Our goal is to get a rooster to replace the old guy long term and the rest will be for the freezer. My hope is long term we can do this more and have some birds going so we can put some in the freezer regularly.
 
I try to choose the most normal looking eggs. No pointy ones, no dirty ones. I don't wash them. I haven't seen any difference in a way they are sitting in there, but I think I put most of them biggest end down. Haven't really thought about it. The rotator in the hexagon leans them from one side to the next when I manually rotate it three times a day. OK, some days I do two times, and some days I've probably done four. It's not too touchy. I like this incubator so much that I've asked for a second one for my birthday. The last hatch I just did had 17 hatch, 6 not. I didn't candle them, and they were all from an afternoon of egg pickup. I don't put in eggs I've picked up in the morning because it's pretty cold here right now. I wait till the afternoon pickup, although that may not make a difference. I've heard that they are good for a number of days, too, and that's what I did with the turkey eggs. First time layers, only three hens, and they only lay about once every three days. Am hoping. Shipping baby turkeys has always had a high mortality rate, so I'm hoping hatching them myself will be better. We raise large breed chickens because I figure we can eat the extra roosters. I have two large chicken coops with runs off of each of them and two roosters in each. They do pretty well. I'll just keep hatching and adding to the flock and to the freezer. Except when people like my nephew come to visit and see 17 new chicks and says he needs them then, oh well, I don't have any chicks right now. Ha.
 
Would love to know which unit you use. If this one doesnt work out ill probably buy a new one. You’ve been so helpful!
We currently get around 5 eggs a day. I expect at the most maybe he has 1 or two fertile if any at all. So I’d like to load ours up then weed out the ones not doing anything.
 
I have a model 4200 from Farm inno... I've had it about a decade, maybe longer. It has air flow and auto egg turner.

Sorry, it's been about 5 years since I hatched out some chicks. It worked great every time, but the first attempt was bumpy at the start. The instructions seem to have been written by someone who's native language isn't english. Once I figured out what the instructions were trying to say it went well! The first batch drowned, had to wait 2 weeks to find that out.


Incubater a (2).jpg
Incubater a (6).jpg
 
I think my plan is to let this thing run a few days. Get it to the right temps etc then load what I’ve picked up out of the coop starting with tonight’s collection.
@Peanut That’s the exact one we have!! That’s why I posted here. The instructions are definitely no good. There so much mixed information online I truly trust y’all better than anyone “online”. Glad to know this unit has hope! I’m so excited to finally try this!
 
The tricky part for me was getting the humidity correct, too high and the chicks will drown. The instructions were very bad, inexcusably bad. The temp was just set and go.

Sort of funny, the first successful batch. One day I was cutting hay and came to the house for lunch. Making a sandwich I could hear a bird somewhere in the house. Actually walked around the house with my sandwich looking for this bird.

I’d forgotten all about the incubator!!! Boy did I feel dumb! I luv to laugh, even at my own self.

Anyway, by that night they'd all hatched out but for a couple. I always seem to have 2 or 3 out of a batch that don’t make it.
 
My incubator is similar to ya'lls. One thing I added was a computer back up battery for power outages. Came home one day and the power was off.. the incubator hadn't cooled down yet but if we had stopped for lunch we could have lost the whole hatch. No idea why the link says robot or human but its the link to the battery I bought.

Robot or human?
 
Ok what in the world!?! Go out to get the PM eggs and there’s a hen nesting on the majority of todays eggs. She’s acting pretty aggressive with me. Wouldn’t it figure I give up and try the incubator and now one goes broody 🤦🏻‍♀️ I gave her the other eggs from today. Will check later and in the morning and see what she’s doing. Still going to figure out the basics on the incubator. May still do a batch once she has the eggs she wants to raise just to see if I can do it since it’s already set up now. Just not as big of a batch as I was thinking if she’s going to raise them. She’s a Wyandot we believe. Would LOVE to have a rooster out of her.
 
Go figure! I usually have to stop broody hens from being broody. A bucket of cold water while she's on the nest works.

Good you know about the incubator, mine is simple to operate. It's just that the instructions are bad. I've written technical procedures for CT repairs the past. It's not easy to do but they could at least get someone who speaks english to do it!
 
A broody hen can be annoying, hogging the nest box. Mine always seem to lay in the same nest no matter how many other nest boxes.

I learned it from my grandparents. A broody hen forgets all about trying to nest after a couple buckets of water... effective.😁
 
I have been traveling a bit on my way home, so missed a bit.

Let the broody hen have a go. Some do a good job, but some quit half way through. Consider putting eggs in the incubator at the same time as the broody gets eggs. That way, if she hatches a few at the same time as the incubator hatches some, she can raise them all. Once her chick's are 2 days old she won't accept any new ones.

You might want to keep miss broody away from the other hens who like to keep laying in her nest and causing problems with too many eggs, eggs getting kicked out of the nest and the hen giving up.

I googled DoubleR's incubator and it looks and functions like my hovabators. I have three hovabators and a big sportsman 1502 for a getter done situation or incubating for the neighbors.

The styrofaom incubators do best in a small room where the temperature is steady. I always throw a heavy towel over them to help keep the temps stable. I remove the plugs in the top and have the best success with what is called dry hatching.

Dry hatching is keeping the humidity around 25%. Perfection isn't required. Put water in the incubator, in about half of the channels and don't add more until the humidity drops to 25%. When adding water, use hot but not boiling water.

The reason I do this is that I get better hatch rates. I had problems with chick's drowning in the shell at the recommended humidity of 85%. For the last 3 days of lockdown, humidity is kept around 85%.

I candle the eggs at 7 or eight days to remove the non fertile ones and than leave them alone until hatching is done. I just thought there were more quitters if I kept candling them for duds.
 
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I've had good luck hatching both quail and chickens starting from zero knowledge to having too many foul, even after the dogs decimated my flocks. A cheap $5 humidity/thermometer combo like this makes it a lot easier to help those in check - like: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QC7JRDP . I started with one of the el-cheapo $60 incubators on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B098VVTFSB and then graduated to one like Peanut's when I wanted to do more eggs at a time. There's some good plans for making cheap ones on the internet for super cheap too. Good luck!
 
Well broody hen tried her best but none of the eggs were fertile. I’d love to stick more under her but need her to start being a chicken again. Another round wouldn’t be good for her.
Saw the old man doing his thing last week so collected eggs from the hen that we saw him breeding. Got the incubator going again and stuck the eggs in last night. We’ll see when we candle them if any are fertile hopefully. Not holding my breath but worth a try. Won’t know if it’s me or the eggs but giving it a go anyways. Y’all have been super helpful. Will update when we know if any are progressing. 🤞🏼
 
Pretty disappointed. Power went off once earlier this morning. Didn’t see any issues as it came back on in less than a minute.
Later in the morning it went off again. This time longer. Temps have gone wonky since. Approximately 101-102* when i checked. Guessing because the fan was off when the power was off and it’s warm in the house.
I’m trying to get the temps stable again but I’m worried the damage has been done. That’s assuming any are even fertile.
Guess time will tell. Watching closely to see if I can get things back to stable.
 
Hope it goes well. I was bummed about a low turkey hatch, but I know better than to expect much collecting eggs in the cold. But hey, there's two. So, filled the incubator up with turkey eggs again, and the other one with chicken eggs. I will tell you though, the new goslings are adorable and incredibly soft
 
This is most likely a lost cause anyways but we're doing it anyways. If anything it's teaching us how to maintain it.
I believe you were thinking that the low hatch was due to low humidity?
I bet the goslings are absolutely adorable!
 
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