Hatching without incubator or hen, humidity help?

[lillypurrs23]

Our eggs arrived yesterday in the mail, since our pullet went broody, and even though we live in cold Wisconsin, we're going to let her have a shot at hatching eggs. We ordered 12 and were sent 13, but she can only sit on 8 eggs, so we're hatching 5 in the house. In a box. With a 150 watt red light bulb. Thing is, we can't really get the right humidity, it's too dry. We even have small containers of water in there to try and help, but there's only 21% humidity, although my stepdad hatched a egg with a lightbulb and no humidity. We're also worried that we might've ruined the eggs, because we had the heat lamp pretty close to the eggs before we found out our thermometer wasn't working properly, which was about 30-45 minutes. Any advice would be great, it's our first time hatching eggs xP

 

[Sweetlilbaby]

some people hatch with low humidity. I suggest a container on the bottom of the box and a cookie cooling rack over that so you can put water UNDER the eggs without it touching the eggs. I did that in a home made incubator. It raises the humidity for the hatch.
Good luck!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

A sponge sticking up out of the container helps pull the water up for evaporation.
You don't really need to worry too much about the humidity until the last few days. By then you'll have experimented enough to get it higher. You can also spritz water in there from a spray bottle time to time.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Low humidity for the first 18 is ok, but I like to keep it above 30% and under 45%

Try the wet sponges/wet rags and remember, SURFACE area is key to raising humidity, not depth..... and I agree to keep the sponges and/or water wells under the eggs but NOT TOUCHING... Example... eggs on a screen above the sponges...
As a last resort you can spray but NOT THE EGGS or anything they sit on!

how high did the thermo read?

This article is great for explaining viability due to temperature! http://www.brinsea.com/customerservice/poweroff.html But no matter what, give them 10 -14 days!!

Good Luck with your hatch!

 

[lillypurrs23]

We figured it out, now have about 50% humidity, as suggested by multiple websites...and we estimated it might've gotten up to 110 >.< but the eggs had just been put in and it was for 45 minutes at most..I really hope we didn't ruin them, stupid thermometer.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Keep updating on candle ok? Fingers crossed, Good luck!!