Beginner's Hatch-A-Long

[ivyrash]

What does everyone find to be the most detrimental to incubating? Temp to high, to low, humidity too high, to low, any others I don't have here? I often think I would rather my temps be a little low then get too high but that is just me, I don't know for sure.

 

[SA Farm]

Temp too high for me. That's what happened to my last batch

From what I've read, if your temps are a little low, your hatch will just take longer. I candled last night and this batch is doing super well. One clear egg and I can't see into most of them, but at least two are growing nicely

 

[ivyrash]

That makes sense to me. My temps looked a little low this morning so I bumped them up a tiny bit and then cleaned the basement while waiting for them to stabilize a bit. I wish I had a better way to measure humidity. I don't think the one that is attached is right and I bought another that had temp and humidity but I don't think it reads the humidity from the probe unless I'm reading it wrong.

 

[WhiskeyTango]

That makes sense to me. My temps looked a little low this morning so I bumped them up a tiny bit and then cleaned the basement while waiting for them to stabilize a bit. I wish I had a better way to measure humidity. I don't think the one that is attached is right and I bought another that had temp and humidity but I don't think it reads the humidity from the probe unless I'm reading it wrong.

Did you calibrate your hygrometer? It's pretty easy. Take 1/2 cup of salt and 1/4 cup of water and mixed them together in a coffee mug. It will look like wet sand. Put the mug and your hygrometer beside each other in a gallon zip lock bag. Don't spill any of the salt slush on your hygrometer. Seal the bag and wait about 8-12 hours. Your hygrometer should read 75%. If it doesn't just make sure you adjust for the difference when it is in your incubator. So if it read 70% after calibration ( off by minus 5% ) and you are incubating at 35% you know if your hygrometer reads 30% you are good.

 

[ivyrash]

I have read about calibrating them but didn't take the time right out of the box. I need to calibrate the thermometer on it also. It's not like I don't already have three thermometers in the stupid thing, you would think that would be enough. lol

 

[EggieRowe]

How do you calibrate the on board hygrometer in the incubator? Put the mug in the incubator without it running maybe? My incubator & secondary therm/hygrometer were consistently different. Granted one was on the mesh and one in the lid, but I suspect my hatch wasn't nearly as 'dry' as I thought. I'm pretty sure a couple chicks drowned in the egg.

 

[ivyrash]

I'm not sure how you would do that. I would think you could take the thermometer/hygrometer out but don't know for sure. I am going to do some looking into it once my hatch is over. I also think I'm going to call the company about it. It says on it that it is only there for reference but what is the point when it is at leas 10 deg. off. You know they charge more for it since they put it in there, I sort of expect things to work correctly when I buy them. Sorry for the rant.

 

[DavidKerk]

Do you have any ideas why?

Not really. I think it was probably low humidity during lockdown.

 

[ivyrash]

So you think they got stuck?

 

[ivyrash]

Candled a few eggs tonight, day 8 for me, I've managed not to kill them so far. They are very active today!