HELP!!!! Humidity all wrong!!!

[vivaciouswoman]

I’m not sure how this happened, but ive been aiming for 70-80% humidity in my incubator. The lowest it has gone is 66%. We are at Day 14, and air sacs are pitifully small. Is there any way to fix this? Take humidity WAAAAY down for a while? I’m desperately trying to preserve the genetics of a favorite rooster who was killed 2 weeks ago, so I will be devastated if I screw this up!!! So far, I’ve only got 5 quitters out of 42, but I can’t let them drown! Advice???

 

[Tiana's chickens]

Bring humidity down to 20-35% for the rest of incubation, they need to lose moisture

 

[Tiana's chickens]

Humidity isn't as critical as temperature because usually you can compensate by upping or lowering it, but yeah I think it's important for your humidity to come down now since it's been so high for awhile. I hope it all goes well for you, please do update when you get some hatch

 

[ChickNanny13]

From what I've read, incubating humidity 30 - 45% from start to lock down, then up to 65 - 75% . The guide is when you candle for the air cell growth. At this point agree with Tianan's chickens .... @oldhenlikesdogs @Pyxis

 

[vivaciouswoman]

Thanks everybody! I'm getting the water out and hoping the humidity will drop steadily over the day. Fingers crossed!!!

 

[vivaciouswoman]

Bring humidity down to 20-35% for the rest of incubation, they need to lose moisture

Would you recommend I bring it back up after Day 17/18?

 

[WVduckchick]

Would you recommend I bring it back up after Day 17/18?

If the air cells are still very small by then, you can even wait until day 19ish to increase it. What breed are you incubating? Check out the article in my signature line in red.

 

[vivaciouswoman]

If the air cells are still very small by then, you can even wait until day 19ish to increase it. What breed are you incubating? Check out the article in my signature line in red.

Well, we are trying to preserve the DNA of the only tailless Ameraucana that has ever come from Townline Hatcheries, so hopefully Daddy is Ameraucana on all/most of these. But mommies are all over the board. As many Ameraucana eggs as I could get, but I put in the first 42 eggs I could find as soon as he was killed. So, mostly Ameraucana, but some mixes. I have all shapes, sizes, thicknesses, and colors in there. When I candled at Day 10/11, they looked lively, but air sacs were very, very small.

To further complicate things, some of my eggs were covered with poo. No, I mean reeeeeeealy covered! I've incubated eggs with a little poop on them successfully, so I'm not a neat freak. These were BAD, so I went ahead and sterilized those 14. They're all in the same incubator together--unwashed and sterilized. I'm guessing the sterilized will respond to drying faster than the unwashed. Hmmmm.

 

[vivaciouswoman]

If the air cells are still very small by then, you can even wait until day 19ish to increase it. What breed are you incubating? Check out the article in my signature line in red.

LOVE YOUR ARTICLE!!!! So helpful! Question: the video you have there--about how many days along is that?

 

[vivaciouswoman]

One more question: the RH here in my area of Michigan is naturally 50-70%. Is there anything I can do to get my RH lower than that in the incubator? Physicist here--I understand that raising the temp will change the saturation point, thus effecting the RH. But I'm wondering if there's a way to further reduce humidity in there--actually remove moisture from the air. The only thing coming to mind is silica packets, but I don't know if I have enough of those (or where they are right now...). Thoughts? Especially @WVduckchick