Hi, I am sorry this problem seems to be high this season. Again I say this is mainly related to too much humidity in your incubator. It is great news that more people are incubating but there are three things you must get right :- Temp, Humidity and Hygiene. Control these three elements and with good fertile eggs you should get good results.

Ensure you use fresh eggs a good incubator (I recommend RCOM Incubators) and incubator disinfectant. Also remember too much humidity is much worse than too little.

40%-45% for the first 19 days 37.7c

60%-65% for the last 2 days 37.5c for hen eggs.

Clean eggs before setting in a good egg/incubator disinfectant. Ensure the water-disinfectant soultion is slightly warmer than the egg and give a gentle clean.

I have just written a comment on this one then also have had 2 emails with a similar question so i will add to the blog. - I have collected hatching eggs but they have got cold overnight to 2-3 degrees, are they any good? Well to be honest no, your fertile eggs are badly damaged. Saying that if you have space in the incubator put them in as there is a small chance they will hatch. Please ensure you candle the hatching eggs at day 7 or day 10 and remove the non developing fertile eggs and throw them away to avoid bacteria damaging the developing eggs.

Ok, thanks for this question. Almost impossible to answer so I will give my answer using my experience. If you are keeping chickens please remember they are prey animals so always a bit flighty. What I have found (my own personal observation not proven in science) is the larger the breed the calmer the bird. Hence why I prefer large fowl only. Please note crested birds with slightly impaired vision seem to be the most flighty for obvious reasons. I am sure I will get lots of emails telling me how clam your banties are but please remember this is only answered on my experience in poultry keeping. Hope this helps.

Hi, we offer 2 poultry houses I would advise. We offer the silkie chicken house or the sussex poultry house these are also our most popular chicken houses. Although there is little price differnce the sussex chicken house is the newer design and with the wider poultry house we find that chicken health and egg numbers are up in the bigger of the two poultry houses. Please remember if your chicken numbers are low that in all poultry housing ensure the bedding is kept to an inch or inch and a half in very cold weather to avoid birds dying. So to answer the question I would suggest the Sussex chicken house as the bird benifits are much better. 

As I am sure you are all aware we are now RCOM Incubator nominated stockists for the UK, we only cover the warranty issues for all R COM incubators sold by www.r-com.co.uk , www.incubate-eggs.com and of course ourselves www.pandtpoultry.co.uk . We are able to repair othe incubators sold by other companies but i am afraid we will have to charge parts and labour.

Hello Amanda, Thankyou for your question. To be honest we have tried everything and without a doubt we recommend an horse bedding called Easibed for chick rearing and for chicken houses. It is highly asorbant and the birds enjoy turning it over. Dust extracted shavings would be second best but start very thin and build up thickness over time. I really recommend AGAINST using shredded paper and cardboard as this is often eaten and fatalities are very high. I hope this has helped with your question. Kind regards P&T Poultry

There are many things to consider but the first 2 things for long term success don’t buy a chicken house with a felt roof as red mite could become a major problem, you will not be able to control the red mite if they breed under the felt. The next consideration is cleaning of your poultry house, if cleaning the house is easy then you will find after 6 months you will still be cleaning the chicken house on a regular basis if the house is difficult to clean then it is too easy to delay cleaning which is not good for the birds.

So when looking for poultry houses ensure you do not buy felt roof models, they are many other options of wooden roofs or onduline (corrugated) roofs which are ideal for the birds.

On cleaning the more access you get in chicken houses the easier they are to clean. Personally I find lift up roofs very hard to clean, leaning in and trying to clean could be very hard, not to mention the roof could be blown off and broken if you get a gusty day - this is more common than you might think. Slide out floors sound great but if bedding is uneven then they don’t slide out and especially if they get wet and swell they really don’t open at all. Full size doors are good but that would be a very big chicken house indeed for full access so this is unlikely for most. Our houses have completely removable sides so you get 100% access to the floor area and cleaning is quick.

Ventilation in chicken houses is also vital to ensure ammonia smells do not damage the birds but ventilation should be in the top of the house and not directly in the faces of the birds or this will also cause health problems.

Perches are also vital in a house, normally 30cm of perch per bird would be fine. Please ensure perches have nice comfortable edges to ensure they dont damage the feet on the birds. Also I would suggest perches are not above 12-15″ off the ground.

Ensure the house is wide enough for the birds to get onto the perches, some houses are too narrow and the birds can not get on to the perches (we have also suffered from this in the past).

Ideally the entry pop hole for the chickens should be lockable at night time as Mr foxy is learning how to lift the sliding pop holes and we are getting many distressed calls due to Mr foxy.

Nest boxes, ideally these should be quite deep for the birds and in a nice dark place in the house. If they could be opened from outside this would be much easier for egg collection and again should have the option to be locked and predators will enter the house in any weak areas.

A very common question, especially on hatching day

When your eggs pip in the incubator you should have your brooding / rearing area ready. In a brooding area you will need a brooder lamp, chick feeder and drinker.

When your eggs hatch in your incubator I advise leaving them in there for about 24 hours with no food or water. After 24 hours move the chicks to your brooding area with your chick drinker filled with water and your chick feeder filled with chick crumb. You can sprinkle a small amount of chick crumb on the floor but 99% of the time the chicks have a good instinct and they will find it.

The height for the brooder lamp really depends on your situation but a simple rough rule is if the chicks are all huddling very very close and on top of each other the brooder lamp is too far away from them and they are cold, however if the chicks are forming a circle or are staying away from the brooder lamp it is too low and they are too hot. Ideally they should be under the brooder lamp wandering around happily with a little space between them. If feeding and drinking and just milling around unstressed you got it right, dont forget though as they grow the brooder lamp will need to be raised. 

To be honest it is what I would consider a very important part of incubating eggs, if you own an incubator then you should really have an egg candler. The reasons for this is one of enjoyment so you can actually watch the little chick developing inside the egg and I must be honest with you, this experience is not one easily forgotten. I am afraid the other reason is a serious one and that is to remove infertile eggs from the incubator, if you do not remove non-fertile eggs then the risk of bacteria growth in your incubator is very high and if this is able to get in fertile eggs through the pores then it may make the chicks too unwell to hatch or even kill them during incubation.

Ideally candling at 10 days for a novice should tell if eggs are fertile or not.

It is also very important to get the correct candler, our own Standard candler and is perfect for white, cream or light brown eggs.

If you wish to do Duck Eggs, Goose eggs or very dark chicken eggs then I must recommend the High Intensity Candler as this will allow you to see inside the eggs where as this Standard Candler would not allow that on thicker or very dark eggs.

Using a candler is very easy, you place the ‘fat’ end of the egg to the light end of the unit, press the button and hey presto you can see inside the egg and what is happening.

Please remember Standard Candler for light egg colours and High Intensity Canlderfor Thick Shelled or Dark coloured eggs. If you have exotic eggs to candle this candler is not recommended and you should consider the Brinsea Cool Lume Candler.

From early April 2008 our new range of r-com incubators will be available for sale, we are offering a brand new humidity system where instead of the sponge system the new RCOM 20 range will have a heater system ensuring a much more accurate and faster humidity system. None of the r-com incubators will have the old Brinsea adjustment hole in the back that caused so many problems with the old models. We will also be offering state of the art animal brooders known as r com pet pavilions, parrot and exotics brooders known as rcom bird pavilions and also a range of specialist r-com reptile incubators known as the Juragon range. They will also be available on www.r-com.co.uk at the same time.