markAndCharlene Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Hi all, Does anyone here in the UK have any experience with dry incubation? It seems to be quite popular state-side. Im currently running an Octagon 20 Advance dry with 40 bantam eggs for the first 18 days. Humidity is holding around the 30% mark which, based on what i have read, should be fine. Of course, i will be raising humidity for the last 3 days. Any success stories/ failures? Also, the Octagon has a "cooling mode" where you can turn the heat off for 2 hours a day, supposedly to simulate the hen leaving the eggs. I dont have this on, but apparently can increase egg hatch rates by 1 egg in 40. Has anyone used this mode and had any success? Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwing Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I always incubate dry now after losing so many chicks to humidity problems I have great success rates in the Octagon 20 just adding a splash of water at day 19 or 20 I have a cabinet incubator now which runs dry throughout the whole hatch The cooling function is a new thing in the Brinsea machines, I havent used it but I hear that the theory behind it is very sound so if my machine allowed it I would probably do it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 I always incubate dry now after losing so many chicks to humidity problems I have great success rates in the Octagon 20 just adding a splash of water at day 19 or 20 I have a cabinet incubator now which runs dry throughout the whole hatch The cooling function is a new thing in the Brinsea machines, I havent used it but I hear that the theory behind it is very sound so if my machine allowed it I would probably do it Thats good to hear. So do you just put water in one or both of the channels in the the O20? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daphne Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I also have an Octogon 20 (old version) and run it dry. I just half fill one channel Day 19/20 and if it looks like the emerging chicks are too dry (ie struggling to get out) when hatching starts I put in a tissue soaked in water. If this is your first go, there might be a bit of trial and error to get conditions right for your situation. My hatching room (aka my study )is a coolish room with 3 outside walls so I don't think I need much extra humidity Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parsley Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 I have just had 100% success with a Brinsea mini with the new cooling system. I ran it dry until the last few days and then filled it up. I was a little unsure with the cooling so set it for 1 hour each day. It happened in the evening and turned out to be an ideal time to candle as the temperature had dropped because of the cooling so I felt easier about disturbing the incubator. Good luck Wendy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 5, 2012 Author Share Posted April 5, 2012 we will be candling the Octagon this weekend, so will report back on how many we have fertile and how it appears to be going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 20, 2012 Author Share Posted April 20, 2012 So far im not impressed with the octagon 20 and dry hatching. Im not sure if we have done something wrong. It's currently day 21 and a half and we have only had 2 hatches out of the 32 that we put in it. there are 5 more that have pipped, but its not looking like a particularly good return. All of these were candled at day 7 and appeared fertile. Some were candled before lockdown and there was movement in them. The brinsea mini advance that we were running alongside (not dry) hatched 100%, which is good news i suppose. With the octagon, we ran at approximately 30% humidity throughout without having to add any water to the reservoirs. We filled up both of the reservoirs on day 18 and added some kitchen roll in there too in order to wick up some of the water. Humidity during lockdown has been at 60-65%. Maybe there is a slight temperature difference in the octagon compared to the mini which might be slowing the hatch, i will have to do a check once this hatch is complete. We are hoping that the next 24 hours provide a few more chicks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwing Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 I doubt that dry incubating to day 18 caused any problems but the humidity now seems a bit high to me, perhaps open the vent further to lower it If the humidity is raised very high at day 18 the chicks internally pipping can be met with an airspace full of water If it was me I would try to get the humidity down a bit and wait a while longer If nothing by this time tomorrow then perhaps whip the eggs out quickly and candle them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 21, 2012 Author Share Posted April 21, 2012 I think we have gotten to the bottom of the problem. 90% of eggs are now either pipped or hatched, albeit a couple of days late - excellent news, however i think we have been very lucky. I put a thermometer in both the brinsea minis and the brinsea octagon that we have set to 37.5 using their in-built thermometer. The readings for the minis was 37.6, and the reading for the octagon was 36.8. Assuming that my own thermomter is reading 0.1 degree over (also assuming that the minis are calibrated correctly), that means that we incubated at nearly one degree below optimum for the whole period (36.7 degrees). I guess that the lesson from this is to check the calibration of any new incubator - they obviously dont come out of the factory correct 100% of the time. As you can see, we have a healthy clutch of chicks with a good 15 or so still drying off... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwing Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 Good news! What breeds are the bantams? I love the little white one over on the left Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purplemaniacs Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 That is good news, they are lovely We found the built in thermometer in the Octagon 20 was difficult to read and we found out that we had the incy too hot to begin with when we used a digital thermometer to check the temperature. Chrissie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 21, 2012 Author Share Posted April 21, 2012 Good news! What breeds are the bantams? I love the little white one over on the left We have some lavender pekin, black pekin, lavendar araucana bantams, salmon faverolle LF, silver laced wyandotte bantams, lemon cuckoo pekins and lemon millefleur sablepoots . The leftmost bantam with the moon face is a lavendar pekin i think. The far left chicks are two faverolles. Its amazing how we get anything else done with these little beauties to stare at all day long!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 21, 2012 Author Share Posted April 21, 2012 That is good news, they are lovely We found the built in thermometer in the Octagon 20 was difficult to read and we found out that we had the incy too hot to begin with when we used a digital thermometer to check the temperature. Chrissie This is the Octagon 20 Advance, which has a digital thermometer on an LCD - dont let the electronics fool anyone into thinking that the unit is correct Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purplemaniacs Posted April 21, 2012 Share Posted April 21, 2012 That is good news, they are lovely We found the built in thermometer in the Octagon 20 was difficult to read and we found out that we had the incy too hot to begin with when we used a digital thermometer to check the temperature. Chrissie This is the Octagon 20 Advance, which has a digital thermometer on an LCD - dont let the electronics fool anyone into thinking that the unit is correct That is interesting, we were considering upgrading to one of those but perhaps not if it is not very accurate Our chicks are now mostly two weeks old and I can't believe how fast they have grown. Chrissie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Space Chick Posted April 22, 2012 Share Posted April 22, 2012 I'm hatching dry this time.... Only adding water on Day 18 following the breeder recommendation. Hatch due on Saturday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 23, 2012 Author Share Posted April 23, 2012 That is good news, they are lovely We found the built in thermometer in the Octagon 20 was difficult to read and we found out that we had the incy too hot to begin with when we used a digital thermometer to check the temperature. Chrissie This is the Octagon 20 Advance, which has a digital thermometer on an LCD - dont let the electronics fool anyone into thinking that the unit is correct That is interesting, we were considering upgrading to one of those but perhaps not if it is not very accurate Our chicks are now mostly two weeks old and I can't believe how fast they have grown. Chrissie Its still a really good incubator, just check the temperature if you can before you set any eggs in it. To be fair, i think everyone should check the calibration of any new incubator before using it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purplemaniacs Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 MarkandCharlene, I think you are right as this was our first hatch we have learnt so much from it for next time, we will watch the temperature more closely with a seperate thermometer. But that said we got 16 chicks from 28 eggs, 7 of which were not fertile so I am very happy with the result Chrissie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markAndCharlene Posted April 24, 2012 Author Share Posted April 24, 2012 We have just set another 35 eggs in the Octagon. Ive recalibrated the unit to increase the temp inside by 0.5 degrees so hopefully this should start the eggs pipping around the 19th day mark as opposed to the 21/22/23rd day (we even had a couple of pips and hatches on the 24th day, but these seem a bit weaker. I'm not sure if an increase of 0.5 degrees will be sufficient to shave a couple of days of the incubation period. I didn't want to increase it by too much as i couldn't find any reference to the amount of temp increase needed to reduce the incubation period. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hasan Arang Posted November 11, 2020 Share Posted November 11, 2020 Hi every body It was great to be aware of the experiences! I am using a made in china incubator, the manual has not been not help full, now I it is the third time of incubation, I am experiencing dry incubation( of course I changed the manner after candling the eggs on the 7!). Now it is 12th day. I will share my experience with you after this course. best regrds Hasan Arang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
