Last week I talked about gearing up for hatching season. Geez I love this time of year, the chickens and ducks are coming into full blossom the closer we get to spring. Our Peacocks have about half their tails grown in, the geese are talking to each other and the Ganders are making those all familiar body gestures when they are around a goose. Yep spring is in the headlights and it’s time to get to work in preparation for hatching some eggs!
By the first of April we will have switched all of our birds over to a high protein diet and they will be getting their mineral supplements in one form or another.
So what’s to do you might wonder? Well here on our farm we will soon be into “prep mode,” we will begin by cleaning the incubators thoroughly. The insides of the cabinets will be scrubbed down rinsed and scrubbed again first with a mild detergent then again with a 10% bleach to water solution (about a cap full of bleach in a gallon of warm water). Next the trays will be cleaned and scrubbed in the same manner and any repairs will be made now. We will ensure that the incubators are dust free and we will vacuum off the heating elements and vents.
Checking the thermometers
Checking thermometers seems to be everyone’s nightmare when it comes to hatching since a few degrees in either direction can have an impact on your success rate. One thing I often hear folks say is they have three or four different thermometers and they all read a bit different, usually I ask where they obtained their thermometers and the answer is often the same, Walmart, Hardware store etc… The fact is that most if not all the thermometers you get from these places to measure atmosphere temperatures has a disclaimer somewhere that says 5 degrees plus or minus and that’s just too much variable for a tiny life growing inside a calcium shell. I will share what works for us. We use a couple different types of thermometers that we calibrate with a human thermometer since they are highly accurate and seldom vary, I check the temperature in the incubators with the human thermometer and then check my digital to see if they read the same and if they are different(almost always are) it is noted for accuracy. We also keep two thermometers in each unit, one is human the other is digital so I can double check accuracy at any time.
Fire them up well in advance
Here at 4D’s Farm we hatch a lot and to be honest anything less than an 80% hatch is saddening and we think of as a failure on our part since human error is usually the cause so anything we can do to work out the kinks in advance we do it. Now that the incubators have been cleaned we will plug them in and start them up, first we will run them dry for 24 hours, bring them up to temperature (99.5/99.8) and ensure that they maintain a near constant temp. After 24 hours we will add the water to the reservoirs and ensure that the hygrometer is measuring the proper maintained humidity, for non-waterfowl we run with about 50%/55% humidity and bump it up to 68% humidity for the last five days of incubation. Once we have ensured that all is in order we shut them down and cover them with a dust sheet until the magical day arrives that we are going to start them for the season.
A few things to consider
Since we still have a couple of months of the cold winter there are a few things you may want to check on such as the difference between “actual and relative humidity” Hygrometer or wet bulb thermometer and finding where in your home is the humidity and temperature the most constant which can make maintaining temperature and humidity in your incubator much easier.
While trying to share some of the small finer points we have learned since we started incubating back in 1985 I try not to clutter it up and leave you confused or bored. We are happy to share what knowledge we have to help folks have a successful hatch come spring. Next week I will continue with the incubation topic and try to cover most of what works for us and tricks of the trade so to speak. In the meantime if you have questions or just want to have a conversation about hatching please feel free to contact me here or join us on the Maine Poultry Connection group on Facebook.