Humidity issues

Sfraker

Songster
5 Years
Feb 17, 2014
560
72
151
Western NC
Hello:

I am hatching for the first time and am having troubles with the humidity level. I have a small little giant incubator with the fan and auto egg turner. I have it set up in my dining room away from windows, air vents, drafts etc... I have 37 guinea eggs in the incubator. Some are pretty old so I don't know how many will be good.

Here is the issue. I live in NC and it is really humid outside. At night it is still getting down to the low 50's so the house cools to 68-70 degrees and the AC does not kick in. The incubator holds a steady temperature but the humidity in the house going up makes the humidity in the incubator go up. Then during the day it gets to the low 80's outside so my A/C kicks in and keeps the house at 76. At that point the humidity in the incubator goes down.

Based on what I read about guinea eggs I am trying to keep them around 45-47% humidity. At night the humidity goes up to 55% and then during the day it will drop to 40%.
If I add water I will make it worse at night, but If I don't add water it's too low during the day. HELP!

I ran it all last week and played with it. This is the most consistent I can get the humidity to be. I am literally adding an eye dropper of water in the am, any more than that jumps the humidity way to high. I put the eggs in yesterday as they were getting old and I couldn't wait any longer.

Any suggestions?

Sara
 
Hello:

I am hatching for the first time and am having troubles with the humidity level. I have a small little giant incubator with the fan and auto egg turner. I have it set up in my dining room away from windows, air vents, drafts etc... I have 37 guinea eggs in the incubator. Some are pretty old so I don't know how many will be good.

Here is the issue. I live in NC and it is really humid outside. At night it is still getting down to the low 50's so the house cools to 68-70 degrees and the AC does not kick in. The incubator holds a steady temperature but the humidity in the house going up makes the humidity in the incubator go up. Then during the day it gets to the low 80's outside so my A/C kicks in and keeps the house at 76. At that point the humidity in the incubator goes down.

Based on what I read about guinea eggs I am trying to keep them around 45-47% humidity. At night the humidity goes up to 55% and then during the day it will drop to 40%.
If I add water I will make it worse at night, but If I don't add water it's too low during the day. HELP!

I ran it all last week and played with it. This is the most consistent I can get the humidity to be. I am literally adding an eye dropper of water in the am, any more than that jumps the humidity way to high. I put the eggs in yesterday as they were getting old and I couldn't wait any longer.

Any suggestions?

Sara
I know nothing about Guineas, but I know a llittle about humidity. Instead of putting water in the wells, have you thought about using a couple sponges (or a sponge cut in two if if two are too much,) during the day when you need more humidity, and removing one (or a half) during the night when you need less humidity? I will say, your humidity at any given time is not an issue. Humidity is important as an average over the period of the incubation. The reason we control humidity is to allow the egg to loose the proper amount of moisture and allow the air cells to grow. If you are hitting your goal for the average, the fluctuations (as long as the eggs are loosing the right amount of moisture) will not greatly effect them. I would rather see the drop during the day (because the egg will still be loosing moisture) than the extra at night.
I'm going to give you a link to my low humidity incubation method for chickens, not for the method, but it has a pretty good explanation of why we control humidity and it's importance. It might help you ease your mind on minor fluctuations. http://letsraisechickens.weebly.com...anuals-understanding-and-controlling-humidity
 
@AmyLynn2374 You rock! I was hoping it was the average and not consistency. I posted here because the guinea forum isn't very busy most days.
 
Amy is the humidity queen!
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Yup, it's the average and how much moisture loss during the incubation period.
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While I agree with that mostly... the air cell still needs to grow early enough so that the chick doesn't grow too huge, but shouldn't grow too much as to confine the chick eiher. In this situation, I think all is fine, but I wouldn't recommend 10% weight loss over the first couple of weeks, and then try to lose the other 90% in the last week, or vice versa! The average would technically be the same, but the growth rate would be affected with huge change. As I said, that's not your case here, but I wouldn't want anyone to read that statement and misinterpret it.
 
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While I agree with that mostly... the air cell still needs to grow early enough so that the chick doesn't grow too huge, but shouldn't grow too much as to confine the chick eiher. In this situation, I think all is fine, but I wouldn't recommend 10% weight loss over the first couple of weeks, and then try to lose the other 90% in the last week, or vice versa! The average would technically be the same, but the growth rate would be affected with huge change. As I said, that's not your case here, but I wouldn't want anyone to read that statement and misinterpret it.
Good point. The more consistant the better. You don't want to see big jumps all at once, you do want growth overall (both air cells and embryo) to be a steady development for optimal growth and hatch. (Which is why I try to persuade people to at least do the 7 & 14 day candleing because it gives you plenty of time to even things out.) But in the area of air cells if you don't catch it until later I would much rather attempt to increase it w/in a day or two rather than not at all.

Not a worry in this case as we are talking small average fluctuations, but a good thing to point out.
 
Thank you! You have all eased my mind.

Now my power outage for 8 hours last night has me concerned. Someone hit a pole near my neighborhood and took out our power lines.
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I think this hatching thing may be too stressful for me. LOL!
 

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