Humidity dropped - day 3

[Urban Chaos]

Be gentle - I'm new at this.

Set 12 bantam eggs Saturday in a Hova-bator 1620n. Temps have been holding steady at 100 and humidity at about 55%. This morning at 8:45, humidity was at 31%. It was in the 50's last I checked at about 1am. Is this a big problem? I added more H20 already. Also, I was going to start the turner today, given the drop in humidity should I wait?

Thanks Ya'll

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Many here run dryer humidity until lock down, day 18 when stop turning eggs and put humidty to 60 to 70%. You've nothing to worry about a 31% humidity in first 18 days. With 'dry hatching' you actually let it run out of water for a day then back to 40-50%. I'll see if I can find a good write up on dry hatching...

http://brensbirdsofparadise.com/Dry Incubation.htm


Oh, and you should be turning your eggs now and continue until day 18.

 

[Urban Chaos]

So are pre-lockdown fluctuations in humidity a big deal? When I got back from work today the humidity was back down to 25% or so and I added more water. I'm wondering if it is worse to have it keep yo yoing than to let it run low until lockdown.

 

[LilyD]

No I don't think it's a big deal as long as during lock down the humidity is 65 to 75.

Good luck

 

[Jessiewoodard57]

mine has done that many times. I just add warm water and the humidity goes back up quickly warm not hot.... ny last 2 hatches where 39 out of 42 and I use a gensis 1588.

 

[Gypsy07]

Chicken eggs should lose approx 13% of their starting weight by the time they get to lockdown. Much more, they'll be too dry, much less, they'll be soggy and may even drown inside the shell. The correct humidity is whatever one gets them to lockdown with this 13% weight loss. It's better if they lose this weight steadily at the same rate throughout the incubation, but fluctuations in humidity are not a huge problem the same way that fluctuations in temperature are.

Like, if you get to day 10 and weigh your eggs and find out they're still far too heavy, you can drop the humidity for a few days to speed up moisture loss. As long as they get to the correct end weight for lockdown which shows that they have lost the correct amount of moisture, they should be okay...

Have a look at Brinsea's website. You can download their Incubation Handbook free of charge and it has a good explanation of humidity etc.

 

[valley ranch]

No problem, bring the humidity up to where you want it and move on.

 

[Arielle]

Another way to check for correct moisture loss is looking at the increasing size of the air cell during candling. Here's a diagram:

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=134479​