It’s not bragging to say that I have hatched tens of
thousands of eggs. I started raising
poultry in my teens. In my junior year
of college I changed my major to poultry science, and everywhere I’ve worked
since, at least some of my duties were in the hatchery.
From 1996 to 2002 our small team incubated, hatched, and
raised chickens. We hatched about 12,000
chicks a year, in batches from 100 – 2500. Mostly we used reliable machines made by
Jamesway in the 1960s and 1970s, with a capacity of about 2500 chicken
eggs. We also used GQF hatchers, and
NatureForm Safari for incubation and hatch (wish I could afford one of those,
they are great). In later years, even
when I wasn’t hands-on for the whole process, I was setting eggs, candling,
pulling hatches and working with the hatchery team to troubleshoot. I designed and built hatcheries, got them
started, assessed the ventilation in the room and in the machines. It’s safe to say I considered myself an
expert.
So when a donor contributed funds to The Livestock
Conservancy in 2013 to buy an incubator and hatcher for our Java recovery
project(Java Project), I figured I had it covered.
Surprise!
Maybe there’s a difference between breeds. Mostly I hatched commercial broilers and
layers in my other jobs. We know that some of
the Java flocks don’t hatch as well as other breeds, but I’m afraid my results
with other breeds can’t be bragged about either.
Maybe it’s something to do with incubating in our small (to
me!) GQF Sportsman, which doesn’t have the insulation of the machines I used
before. Also, I can’t dial in the
humidity on the Sportsman like I did on those other machines. We’ll come back to that.
Right away it was clear that I needed to use higher humidity
in the hatcher than back in the “old days”.
That has pretty much solved the issues with sticky chicks. But the incubation settings still aren’t
quite right.
I should say right off the bat that I have records. And data.
We record the temperature and humidity twice a day, and I breakout and
stage all the unhatched eggs. That’s how
I was taught!
By the end of the 2013 season, things weren’t too bad, with
hatch-of-fertile above 80%. There was
still room for improvement in late-stage mortalities (just before transfer and
in the hatcher). The humidity tends to run
about 54-56% during incubation, and based on the size of the air cell I think
that’s too high. Our friend Gra in SC has
travelled this same path and suggested letting the water pan dry out completely
every few days. That seems to help. Then we crank up the humidity in the hatcher
to avoid sticky chicks.
Using that exact same settings in 2014, we’ve had two egg
sets so far. This time we saw lots of
early deads (during the first seven days of incubation). And they’re hatching too early. Maybe the incubation temperature is too
high? We did pretty well with it last
year (99.8), but did tend to see early hatches. Did we let the eggs get too warm during
storage? <Deep frustrated sigh…>
Now we have a large group of turkey eggs in the
incubator. I haven’t hatched turkey eggs
in years, so I asked what settings to use.
Both the breeder and our friend Julie in NC said, 99.5F and 54-62%
humidity. It’s easier that the humidity
setting is closer to where it naturally wants to be. But after candling Wednesday there were about
22% clear. I went ahead and broke them
out, and again almost all had died in the first 7 days of incubation. This is the largest group we’ve had in the
incubator at once, and I’m nervous. The
air cells are a little big. Yesterday the
power went out for an hour and a half!
I won’t give up.
Undoubtedly it’s good for me to eat some humble pie, and remember what
it was like to be a beginner. Some days
I’m ready to pull my hair out. Then we
get cute healthy chicks and I’m thrilled. I’m grateful to our friends and members who
have given me advice. I’m grateful for
my colleagues who haven’t sacked me (joke, ha, ha). I hover like a broody hen. This _can_ be solved!
Are you working on a new or old problem, trying to master
some animal husbandry skill? We are ALL
always learning, and always finding situations we’ve never encountered
before. With persistence, advice,
patience, and humility, we’ll learn and improve. Until the next new thing comes along!
You can contact Alison at amartin@livetockconservancy.org
