The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club > Housing, Health & Hatching
Hatching season?
John:
--- Quote ---I use Tek-Trol to disinfect the incubators & brooders but didn\'t know that it could be sprayed onto the eggs.
--- End quote ---
After I place the eggs into the plastic trays that go into the setters (incubators) and just before setting them I liberally spray the eggs with the Tek-Trol solution. It completely covers the eggs and is much quicker then dipping them. When I first tried it a few years ago I started with just a little mist and was afraid of overdoing it, but I haven\'t noticed any negative results and it only takes a few seconds to do. I especially feel very comfortable using it because it includes hatcheries, setters and hatchers in the list of many uses on the label.
PS...like Mike I rub or scrape dirt off the eggs. I\'ve never washed or dipped hatching eggs. Seldom do I get a rotten/stinky egg and I hatched over 4,000 chicks last year.
Paul:
We use 6 1/2 oz. of Oxine to 1 gal. of water to disinfect our incubators. The eggs are also washed in the Oxine/water solution. A tip I learned last year was to put 2 tablespoons of bleach in 1 gal. of water to be placed in the water pans inside the incubator during incubation and hatching.
I like using it!
Chicklover:
Just set the second batch of eggs. Candle the first batch looking good just 2 more weeks.
John:
--- Quote ---A tip I learned last year was to put 2 tablespoons of bleach in 1 gal. of water to be placed in the water pans inside the incubator during incubation and hatching.
--- End quote ---
I use city water in the incubators which is chlorinated, so adding bleach isn\'t needed here. If you have a choice between using city water and well water (with a lot of minerals like mine) in your incubators I would recommend the city, distilled or filtered water.
FLFAmeraucanas:
I\'ve never done anything to disinfect my eggs before setting them in my incubator. Don\'t I feel like a country bumpkin! Good advice here, I\'ll have to give it a try. I also never gave a second thought to using our well water, might have to try some distilled as well and see what my results are like.
I\'ve been hatching like a fiend since October. \'Course that\'s when my lavenders were finally giving me eggs. This is my first year raising my own lavs and splits, so I really want to have lots of birds to choose from as breeders and hopefully to show. I also only have 7 hens laying, so we aren\'t talking the huge amount of eggs some of you guys have :) I have 2 good black hens, 4 lavender pullets, 1 lavender hen, 1 lavender roo and 1 split roo in that pen. I put 2 new lavender hens in that pen only to have them everybody stop laying a couple weeks ago. Now my Blue/Splash pen is kicking up, so I\'ve been setting eggs from them. I have a Splash rooster, Splash hen, Black Hen, Blue Hen, 2 Splash Pullets and 2 black pullets in there. I lost my blue rooster last year and was lucky enough to find this splash rooster (from a very generous individual) so these are the first chicks from him. Excited to see what sort of quality they are!
I also just purchased a Silver flock and they came with a blue silver hen, 2 blue silver pullets and a blue silver cockrel. They are still in quarentine and no one is laying yet, but I\'m sure I\'ll be having lots of questions for you all. I\'ve always loved the silver color but the genetics of it are still abit intimidating to me.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version