Rcom 20 Pro and Rcom Suro Humidity settings?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
A

Anonymous

Guest
Hi,

Being new to the hobby i rushed out and bought a Covatutto incubator which came with 6 free 'fertile' eggs from a local gent, who reliably informed me were Silver Line Bantams? to cut a long story short I decided not to use the incbator and bought a brant new RCOM 20 Pro and duly set it to 21days 45% humidity and 37.5Oc for first 18 days, rotating hourly @ 90o. These eggs were then transferred to hatch into a more recent purchase an Rcom Suro where the last 3 days humidity set at 65% and 37Oc (non rotating), candling at day 10 showed 4 fertile but only two out of four hatched and one appears to be deformed, other 2 are dead in shell, the hatched chicks appear to be quite large for the shell and im not sure of breed.

Could it be humidity to blame or poor interbreeding? parents didnt appear to be good stock.

My dilemma is that I now have other fertile eggs (Candled at day 10)in the Pro at 14days old (Buff Orpingtons and Dutch Lavender bantams), Im concerned about the huimidity level which is still at a steady 45%, should I lower the humidity at this stage or just complete the same process as before and transfer to rcom suro at 18days at 65% humidity and hope for the best, or not set humidity so high in the Rcom Suro?

Hope that all makes sence, any advice gratefully received.

A fantastic site.........
 
hi, welcome to the forum!!!!!! :-)99 :-)99
i use a brinsea and am really grateful that it just has two compartments to fill with water, and not this confusing percentage stuff.
What about the instructions? Does it come with instructions that tell you how the humidity should be?
 
I suppose this is half the problem, Im not sure if i'm over complicating things and having posted eggs dosent help things. P&T poultry sent me a sheet with all the settings on which I have duly followed which they have stated are best settings, but then like everything else when you read on the internet theres always conflicting advice some people running with no humidity and others just not worrying about it and just filling up reserviors. It just seems strage that the chicks appeared to be quite large in the shells and this is apperently a common problem of running with excess humidity, and now ive got another 8 eggs coming up to hatching which have been run at same levels. Ill be devasted if I have the same issues again at hatching day.

It just seems to be I have all the best equipment and still can't do the job properly, I rember my dad hatching in just a wooden box with a bulb in it when i was a child with little problem.....
 
I don t have any bright ideas sorry - but i m running my third hatch in a covattuto 16 , this time dry til day 18 then adding water , having not had great success with the previous one (first hatch8/11 pleased with that but second 6/12).
My Nan whose in her 90's is staying with us and tells me used to keep hundreds of RIR as a girl and remembers very few eggs ever failing to hatch - i'm sure a lot of it is due to us buying unknown stock off the internet, postal system , not to mention attempting to hatch notoriously difficult eggs! (mine in at the mo are welsummer and marans)
Good luck!
 
I think most people will want to follow the instructions for the first couple of settings. If they are unsuccessful, then I would suggest doing some experimenting. I've used both of the R coms but had little success with the Suro and so sold it. The best hatches came when I ran it dry until the eggs chipped when I raised the humidity but at best I only got a 40% hatch .
I'd say almost no two incubators are used in the same situations i.e. some are indoors /spare bedroom/kitchen/cellar/dining room; some are outdoors in sheds/stables/greenhouses !! There are also loads of different mini climates in the UK all very changeable so no wonder we have problems.
Even at the end of the process, my chicks hatch well at no more than 55% humidy and if it's a little lower, I leave alone.
I suspect that higher than 60% humidity on day 18 is the cause of many chicks dying between day 18 and 21.
However, please realise this is just my theory.
 
From what I gather..you managed to hatch 2 out of 4 fertile eggs, this is a 50% hatch, and isn't so bad for a first time so take heart. An awful lot depends on vigour and health of the hatching eggs which, unless you have raised the parent flock is very hard to predict.

Dry hatching is a very effective method a lot have had success, however usually by quite experienced breeders who know, not just the their equippment very well but their ambient enviroment. I dry hatch and then only raise humidity till most have pipped externally, I have both Rcoms and Brinsea, about to buy a MS and will have to start from scratch then with understanding the foibles of a new machine! :D

So in summary, stick to what you did previously, and see how this hatch goes before experimenting. The ony slight tweak I would advise you at this stage...is to hold off raising the humidity until you see the eggs have externally pipped, just my opinion! :D
 
Thanks for all the input, it is really appreciated and puts things into persprective a little, I think though ill take the advice and leave the humidity at the same level and raise on pipping.

Again thank you
 
Hi, this is my third year of hatching. the first year I bought eggs and had about a 50% hatch rate. last year I set my own eggs and had about a 95% hatch rate. This year I have again bought eggs as I no longer have a cockerel and my hatch rate has been about 30%...
I think it is to do with eggs coming through the post and not knowing how old they really are...
 
The post is definitely an issue. I've noticed that posted eggs generally have distorted air sacs when candled before incubation while my home laid eggs have a neat round air sac. I usually get 5 to 6 out of 6 with home laid and 2 to 3 out of 6 with posted. I also got 6 out of 6 with eggs I collected from the seller.
 
As an update to my original post only 1 out of the 4 fertile buff orpington eggs hatched, and three out of the four Dutch lavender bantams hatched. Although late in the season im just coming up to my last two batches of (ebay) eggs to be hatched where 6/6 have candled fertle for the orpingtons and 6/9 candled fertle for the lavenders (Rcom 20pro). Ive gone a little more scientific this time though and have weiged all eggs every three days (including calculated averages) and am ensuring that they remain near to a 13% weight loss over the 21day period. Set at 45% humidity (37.5oc) they are only -0.5g off on day 12 for lavenders and -0.76g for the orpingtons on an averge egg weight.

Which leads to the question, obviously it appears not to help getting eggs through the post but I handnt considered until a recent post that some eggs are more 'difficut to hatch' than others...... does enyone have some sort of a list of the more common species that are 'difficult' to hatch, and what are the causes of this? is it to do with size, shell thickness etc, etc. Or just the complexities of attempting to mimic the attentivness of a natural monther in an incubator?

On my suro I have an automtic rotating time setting and a rotation amount (Currently 90degs and every hour) I would of thought using the random settings for both would be a more natural progression for mimicing what happens in real life (so rotating anything between 15mins and 4hours and 20 degs to 180 degs? or similar), what do you folks think?
 
Are you leaving your eggs pointy side down for at least 24 hours before going into the incubator. This is important as is disinfecting and breeding stock quality. We set our Suro to the chart and it was OK. Have you got the model wth the sponge in the top? The humidity in our old house is too high anyway so the unit didn't really use any water. It is important to set it up right so that it only pumps slowly, almost at lowest speed, otherwise the humidity will be far too high for a while. Not convinced the readings on the unit are accurate anyway (the temperature isn't on ours) so weighing a few of the eggs is the best method.
Our posted buff orpington eggs from P&T were infertile, inbred, cross breeds and undernourised and a complete waste of time and money. Our own hatched 100% and all very healthy. So its not really the breed I think its the source.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top