Completly lost. Trying to hatch eggs

Guys i have been reading just about everything i can find here on hatching eggs with a LG bator and it seems to be mostly contradictive.
Can one of you please help me out here with some straight advice?

I have had the eggs in for 4 days. It took a day to learn how to get the thing to hold a good temp. Im turning them twice a day. I have been wetting a little paper towel to try and help with humidity but i dont have a way to measure it.


So what i have is a used LG, no fan or turner. Im using one of my very expensive fluke thermometer and k type thermocouple to monitor temp which i have got to hold between 100 and 102°F.

I have resd some stuff about keeping a certain RH throughout the process and others say do it dry until day 18 and then keep it high.


Whats my best plan of attack as far as humidity goes? Should i just keep the reservoir full? Or wait and then put wet rags in later?


Thanks

Temp should be at 99.5 and never over 100.....

What kind of eggs your hatching? If chicken or duck? The humidity should be at 45 to 55% for setting ........

WVduckchick is awesome.....I can not tag her with this ipad though......


Cheers....

It will be trial and error on humidity to find what works for you.

In my styros I dry incubate. Try to keep humidity 20 to 40. So I don't add any water during incubation. That's is what worked best for me.

Then on day 18 I fill the troughs with warm water. And wait for hatch.

I found I have my best hatches this method. I'm it better to be a little dry during incubation than too wet.

102 is a good temp taken at the top of the eggs.

Which LG do you have 9200 older style or 9300.

I thought it was 99.5 for forces air and 102 for still air?

Chic Rustler said:

I thought it was 99.5 for forces air and 102 for still air?

Click to expand...

You are correct

Im not sure what the model is. It is very touchy and older. I bought it used from CL for $20

feedman77 said:

It will be trial and error on humidity to find what works for you.

In my styros I dry incubate. Try to keep humidity 20 to 40. So I don't add any water during incubation. That's is what worked best for me.

Then on day 18 I fill the troughs with warm water. And wait for hatch.

I found I have my best hatches this method. I'm it better to be a little dry during incubation than too wet.

102 is a good temp taken at the top of the eggs.

Which LG do you have 9200 older style or 9300.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the straight advice.. i will give it a shot

I seen a thread on here where a person used a card board box and a desk lamp and hatchet 6 of 6. Ill be lucky to get 6 of 20 haha

Most pet shops/rip off stores have a digital reptile thermometer humidity gauge. All Thing Living is a pretty accurate system for about $20 bucks. It would let you monitor the incubators temp and humidity allot better.

Still Air/Forced Air, I use a forced air home build and really never paid that much attention to some exact/precise science, but I would if I had a $15.00 egg, but after incubating over 4000 eggs I stopped focusing so much on that. I know 2.5 degrees is a lot but I grab the middle of 99.5 and 102.5 and incubate at 100 to 101.25 and say the hell with it.
Temps are always going to fluxuate (+, -) 1.5 degrees depending on the thermostat in my perfect world of thought as they are all of different sensitivity.
As for humidity, I keep a 65-75% humidity throughout incubation to hatch. You just don't want the egg to collect water droplets or be wet appearing to sweat. But its also dependent on the egg species type.
Obviously a reptile egg that is laid deep in the middle of the desert sands will be of a dry type egg to hatch (low humidity), while a duck egg may require or withstand allot more humidity. That's just a example of common sense to follow not a rule!

In saying that the LG will probably be all over the map in temps and humidity and drive you insane as far as maintaining the settings you decide to go with, so just relax you can hatch with one. Just know they do not have the best success reputation and it will be more the efforts you put into the incubation maintenance.

BTW, rotate the egg 3-5 times a day not 2, you have better results of the chicks that hatch.....otherwise they might be born with crooked necks. The more you rotate each day the less chance that will occur.

Thanks for the info. Well the eggs have been in there 4,5, and 6 days. I put them in as i collected them. I candled them last night and it looks to my untrained eye that all but 2 are alive. The only thing that concerns me is i dont see many air pockets. How long before the air pockets start to develop?