Oh no!!! Help, my humidity shot up..

[SH2009]

I've been incubating eggs in a little giant incubator, but I have an extra humidity reader and temperature gage inside next to the eggs for back up reading. The one on the screen is inaccurate and always says it's about 45% humidity.
Today was day 18 so I took out my egg turner and put all 10 of my eggs on their sides and closed the top. within minutes the humidity gauge went from 52 nearly 80. I am devastated. The only explanation is that it was at or around 80 the whole time and falsely reading because of the egg turner. I mean, what else could the exclamation be?
My question is is it completely too late? What now? should I keep the humidity at 50 and hopes the chicks don't drown? or bring it up higher because we're in lockdown and hope for a miracle? This is so sad.

 

[Debbie292d]

An egg turner would have no impact on humidity so I don't know what caused that spike. You don't know for sure it was 80% the whole time so I would just set it for what it should be at in lockdown. For me, that's 65-70%.

Welcome to BYC, btw! I hope you have a good hatch. You'll have to let us know how it worked out.

 

[SH2009]

An egg turner would have no impact on humidity so I don't know what caused that spike. You don't know for sure it was 80% the whole time so I would just set it for what it should be at in lockdown. For me, that's 65-70%.

Welcome to BYC, btw! I hope you have a good hatch. You'll have to let us know how it worked out.

So if it had no impact the only other assumption would be that the reader was incorrect and the humidity has been too high the whole time

 

[BantyChooks]

The main function of specific humidity levels is to control the water loss from the egg so that it can hatch normally. You should be candling once a week and adjusting humidity levels based on that, not sticking to a number. What do the air cells look like? That will tell you a lot.

Edited to add: I would keep the humidity on the higher end. What's done is done unfortunately and if they haven't lost enough moisture you can't catch up now.

 

[Benny R]

My NR360 shot up to 80 when I filled both chambers. Stay there for day 18/19 and I still got a 83 % hatch.