Little Giant Incubator Tricks

[Dragons4u]

I'm getting the PID for free from my college and will be using an Omron SSR. Omron isn't top end, but they are pretty decent quality wise.
The PID will be an Allan Bradley or an Omron as well.

 

[gpop1]

I'm getting the PID for free from my college and will be using an Omron SSR. Omron isn't top end, but they are pretty decent quality wise.
The PID will be an Allan Bradley or an Omron as well.

Sounds like a good plan especially with industrial grade parts. You will have to post your results.

 

[BluRoo Farm OH]

I'm going to try this. I have 3 hygrometers/thermometers, and they are all off with humidity.
Started lock down 5 hours ago, and can't get humidity over 51%. I have 3 sponges inside,
and continuously added water...ugggh!

 

[Dragons4u]

Sounds like your humidity might be way high with three sponges and that much water. Did you try the salt paste calibration on your hygrometers?

 

[Dragons4u]

Sounds like a good plan especially with industrial grade parts. You will have to post your results.

It will be a month or two before I have any results. Apparently I have to wait for my relay to be sent from Omron in Japan. Lol, I couldn't find any place near me that sold SSRs at all. Every place I went to said they either didn't sell them at all, or it would be several weeks to get one.
The rest of the system is wired and waiting for the relay so I can finish the build. Then I have to get some stuff moved around to make room for all the birds I hope to hatch.

 

[BluRoo Farm OH]

No, and I am going to. I had never heard of that. Thank you!!!

 

[Dragons4u]

Your welcome, but remember to check calibration on any hygrometers and thermometers you buy. There are plenty of tutorials online on how to do it. It won't be as exact as having them calibrated in a lab, but it will let you know how far off they for the most part.

 

[cmom]

I'm going to try this. I have 3 hygrometers/thermometers, and they are all off with humidity.
Started lock down 5 hours ago, and can't get humidity over 51%. I have 3 sponges inside,
and continuously added water...ugggh!

It is a styrofoam incubator? Where is it located. There are a lot of factors that can affect temperature and humidity. Maybe put it in a closet that can be closed to control the humidity. If you have a humidifier you could put that in the room with the incubator/hatcher. I put my humidity up around 75%, the chicks need it so they can move around in the shell to pip and zip. I do incubate in a cabinet incubator but hatch in my styrofoams.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_pg_...TF8&qid=1488487339&spIA=B01M06T0RA,B018CLNEOM

To calibrate a hygrometer you will need:
1/2 cup table salt
approximately 1/4 cup water
coffee cup
hygrometer
large resealable freezer bag
Place 1/2 cup of salt in the coffee cup, and add the water. Stir for a bit to totally saturate the salt. The salt won't dissolve in this amount of water; instead, the salt should have the consistency of wet sand.
Carefully place the cup containing the salt/water mix in a resealable plastic bag. Place the hygrometer in the bag, away from the cup of salt and water. Note: make sure none of the salt/water mix comes in direct contact with the hygrometer, or the hygrometer may be damaged. Completely seal the bag.
Place the sealed bag aside at room temperature for 8-12 hours. Pick a location free of drafts, out of direct sunlight, and away from heating or cooling vents. The temperature should be fairly constant.
After being in the sealed bag for 8-12 hours, check the reading of the hygrometer. It is best to read it while still in the bag, since if your house air is dry the reading may go down quickly once you take the hygrometer out of the bag.
The relative humidity in the sealed bag with the salt/water mix should be 75 percent.
If yours is the adjustable type, adjust the screw or setting so that it would have read 75 percent. You will have to do this very quickly, or remember how much you need to adjust the setting (e.g. for mine, it read 72 percent when it should have been 75 percent, so I would need to set it ahead by 3 percentage points). You may want to put the hygrometer back in the bag for another 8 hours to double check your adjustment.
If yours is not adjustable (like mine), simply make a note of how "off" your hygrometer reads. If it reads below 75 percent, you will need to add the difference to your actual readings. If your hygrometer read above 75 percent on the calibration, you will need to subtract the difference from your actual reading. Here are some examples to help:
Case 1: after sitting in the bag for calibration, my hygrometer read 72 percent. It should have read 75 percent, so the difference is 3 percent. I will now add 3 percent to the readings I take on the hygrometer (e.g. in a tank) to get the actual relative humidity.
Case 2: after calibrating in the bag, a hygrometer read 80 percent. It should have read 75 percent, a difference of 5 percent. I would have to subtract 5 percent from readings when using the hygrometer to get an accurate relative humidity.
Remember: always give a hygrometer about 2 hours to stabilize before taking a reading, as changes in the relative humidity may take a while to register accurately on a hygrometer.

Whenever you purchased a new thermometer and about to use it for the first time, you need to calibrate it. Thermometers will also need to be calibrated whenever they are dropped or when going from one temperature extreme to another. Thermometers are a critical measuring equipments for temperature to ensure good hatch rates.

There are two methods that you could use to calibrate thermometers -

Ice Point Method - Fill a container with crushed ice and water. Ensure that the container have enough crushed ice to provide an environment of 32 degrees F, so you may need to add more ice into the container during the process. It will takes about 4 to 5 minutes for the mixture of water to stabilized. Then insert the thermometer which needs to be calibrated into the appropriate immersion depth. Hold the thermometer away from the bottom and sides of the container to avoid error. If your thermometer is not accurate at 32 degrees F, adjust the thermometer accordingly.

Boiling Point Method - Fill a container with distilled water and heat it up. After the temperature in the water has reached the boiling point, insert the thermometer . Be sure to leave at least a two inch gap between the thermometer sensing element and the bottom and sides of the container to avoid error. If your thermometer is not accurate at 212 degrees F, adjust the thermometer accordingly.

There are some thermometers that are not meant to be put in water and water may damage them. This is what I do for these types of thermometers. I fill a glass with crushed ice (NO WATER) and put the thermometer probe around halfway down into the ice and cover with a washcloth. I let the thermometer set in the ice for about 15 minutes. At that time it should read around 32ºF.

 

[chicken curious]

Hi, Everyone! I know this thread is old, but I've read the whole thing (!) and it's packed with so much awesomeness...thank you to anyone who posted, especially the people answering questions and sharing their experiences!

My small, in town, backyard flock (including a broody with teenage chicks - I gave her fertile eggs) was all slaughtered in the Fall.

Now that it's Spring I'd like to start building a flock.

I hatched out 2 chicks recently (first try). That's out of 14 eggs but many were early quitters. Two died in their shell at the end (actually, I was doing eggtopsies on day 25 and surprised a chick so I stuck it and another one that was developed back in, but they didn't make it.) that whole hatch was dubious from the beginning because my sister collected the eggs over time, but let her broody sit on some for a few days -they didn't know how many- before handing them all to my mom who put them on her front seat with the seat warmer on and drove them from Lubbock to the Waco area (~6h) and then tried to keep them warm overnight and then drove them 2.5 hours to Dallas to give them to me. I love them both, but they didn't know what they were doing and I could have advised them had this not been a surprise for me. She brought my sister's incubator and I put them in asap without having time for stabilizing b/c they were already started. Sigh. I think I did ok with what I was handed. LOL

That was BEFORE I read this thread and bought the IncuTherm Plus and a couple aquarium thermometers to track LG better. Now I know that the digital LG hygrometer is off and H% really was much higher than it registered. I just kept adding warm water to last batch to soak the multiple sponges and just let it overflow out the bottom. The lid was always full of condensation, typically each window was 25% clouded, but sometimes up to 75% b/c the LG digital display still said I was only getting it up to 60%. I'm kinda surprised any chicks lived!

Try #2: I bought some shipped eggs (yes, I know my chances are dismal, but I'm going to work within that assumption and do the best with what I've got ! ) I want to see how I do (and maybe even add a couple more layers to this flock).

The weather here is so gorgeous right now (80s/60s) that DH insists we leave the windows and doors open and don't run any a/c or heat. I love it *for me*...cold and night and maybe a bit warm in the heat of the day, but the fresh air is awesome. However, it has made keeping the incubator consistent very hard. Just a still air LGthat is borrowed so I'm not going to make modifications. Wish me luck!

The air cells didn't look too damaged from shipment...

I let them sit a few hours and then candled. I didn't see any rolling air which is great, but I also didn't see an air pocket in all of them (of course I'm just using my phone flashlight to candle and there are limitations!). Fingers crossed!

I went ahead and loaded them into the LG that had been stable for days. I have them in a cutdown carton big side up and have been spinning the whole carton a few times a day and moving it around the floor of the incubator since the still air has cooler spots, but I haven't removed them from the carton. I *plan* to wait to lay them down and roll/rotate for at least 3 days, maybe 5...maybe 7...thoughts? Or maybe I should leave them in the carton the whole hatch???

 

[chicken curious]

I have the incubator in a room without a window and we're keeping the door to the room closed to try to help with the room temp swigs caused by the doors and windows being open other places.

I have large pebbles in the wells and two large river rocks in the main chamber as heat sinks.

I'm dry hatching and H% is the 30s/40s.

I'm on day 2 assuming I don't count the evening of setting them at 9pm as anything.

Having more data is actually stressing me out more, but hopefully worth it to know what's really going on. I tried to check the validity of the 2 aquarium thermometers using the ice water, but they never went below 34 degrees. I figured they were both off by 2 degrees high, but now that I compare their reading to the LG digital and the IncuTherm Plus, I'm not so sure. The IncuTherm Plus in ice (no water) never went below 34 degrees either and the H% reading was 71% after 12+ hours in the bag with the wet salt.

The probe keeps registering temps up to 104 and stressing me out! (The other three register 100-101 so I'm confused!) I'm home and can check frequently, but I'm trying to wait 30 minutes to an hour between any changes or even checks because opening the door might effect it.

Thoughts?