aliciaplus3
Free Ranging
This idea is of great interest to me as I only started incubating last November, since then I have done quite a lot of reading and kept running accross the idea that the factory suggested humidity(50%) was just too high and that a lower one(30-40%) would mean a higher hatch rate. So half way through my first run I started lowering the humidity trying to hit 35 and found that I was achieving either 30 or 50 but struggling to hit in between. My first hatch I started with 17 and hatched 9. So the middle of December I decided to try again, put in 36 and hatched 17 with the humidity close to 30% until lockdown. So the next several trys I found that if I added no water my numbers were hovering at 25% so I ran with that and had many late deaths with the chicks dieing either just before pip or piping and dieing. I was struggling to understand what was going on. I noticed that all the survives seemed to be in the same quadrant of the bator, so I thought that ventilation was my issue increased freash air flow, still had lots of DIS. I did notice as an after thought that the suevivers mostly came from my dark brown less porous eggs so they lost less moisture. Sigh so I got to watching the temps closely, and when I remove the egg turner for lockdown the eggs sit a good inch and a half lower in the bator and because the temp probably doesn't move I noticed the egg temp was getting up to 102 or so. I also noticed that the air cells looked bigger during the last couple days than they should. I am very persistent So I am now a week in on another batch of eggs and this time I have kept the humidity right around 45-50% and watched the temps like a hawk. I found an incubator thermometer that has a probe shaped like an egg that is supposed to give a better reading of the internal egg temp..... so we shall see.
