Trying out a new sensor for humidity and temperature fluctuations during haching eggs. (Govee sensor)

chickkrzi

Songster
11 Years
Dec 8, 2011
263
55
216
Waco texas
Set some ISA Brown eggs today from Townline. And yes I know sexlink don't breed true. I'm very pleased with the egg production, egg color and shell quality. But i was somewhat disappointed by the egg size. Not seeing that XXX large eggs size they bost. I'm still pleased with the my birds though. I had read an article about breeding them and still getting great egg layers over the F2,F3 and F4 generatios. Its been a few years ago I had seen this article. And had a hard time finding it again. The gentleman that had done the hard work logged quite a bit of information in this thread. Along with a few others doing the same thing. (You can view it here. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/breeding-sex-links-third-generation.660815/ )
So this going to be more of an experiment for me. And with these eggs I'm going to use two very different incubators. Incubator 'A" is a farm inavotor with fan I've used before. Will be using my trustee spot check for temperature control. And a Govee humidity/temperature sensor (this should give the average temperature/ humidity at hourly, daily, weekly average as well as warning me if thing go haywire. First time using the Govee sensor hope it works). The sensoris sitting on the incubator floor in a corner. The Spot check is on top of eggs. That's why there's a 1 degree difference on chart. When I first checked the Govee with my Spot check, there was a. 2 degree difference (low).
Will be hand rotating the eggs 3 times a day. (Kinda like the hand turning than automatic turners). I've set 35 eggs in Saturday. Let's see what happens.
Incubator "B" is a Delaware hen. Well... nothing special there. It will be her first time haching eggs. She has been wanting to go broody for the last 3 weeks now. Hope she doesn't give up before she hatches. Just going to give her 8-10 eggs and a nice quiet, safe place for her to sit and let mother nature do the work. Pics below are of the birds and incubators I will be working with and a chart showing the last few days of incubation.
 

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Those are both outstanding thermometers and the two best I know of without breaking the bank.
I have a spot check and three Govee H5074.

Darn! I wish I had read this post before I bought this one on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076M5WCR7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The Govee is the same price as this one and it says the humidity measurement is +/- 3% accuracy whereas the one I got is +/- 5% accuracy. I just used it to check the temperature and humidity in my two new Kebonnixs incubators and it was exactly 5% difference between what the incubator said and what the device I bought said. In both cases, my device showed humidity to be 5% lower than what the incubator said. But, I'm definitely going to get the Govee because I like the idea of being able to check from my phone!

I'm on Day 6 in the incubation process and I candled 17 of the 24 eggs yesterday---- all of them are developing as they should be.

BTW-- the Spot Check is just for temperature, correct? The one made by Brisnea?
 
I trust the spot check from Brisnea. Most of my eggs will hach at 21-22 days if I'm able to keep temperature at 95 average. With me using the Govee I'm able to get a daily, weekly average. I'm trying to keep my farm inavotor at 99.5 and humidity at 35%. But as with most Styrofoam incubators it seem it be a real challenge. (See chart of my weekly temp humidity with the Govee I set eggs Saturday, you can see the big drop in temperature as well as when I rotate them).
The one thing I didn't count on was the Govee calculates the big drops (when I turn the eggs) as the running average. So the average temperature shows to be a little lower than I need. But if I keep using my spot check to maintain temp I should be ok. I hope.
 

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Sorry I posted the wrong screen shot. This is my weekly average so far.
 

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Yes. the spot check is just a thermometer.
It is very accurate. The only thing I don't like is that it only gives temperature between 90F and 104F. Outside of that range it just says if it is high or low but not how high or how low.
A few years ago there were defective units floating around (possibly fakes/knock offs) that were inaccurate. It is best to buy one directly from Brinsea than from Amazon or other online sources like E-bay.
 
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Yes. the spot check is just a thermometer.
It is very accurate. The only thing I don't like is that it only gives temperature between 90F and 104F. Outside of that range it just says if it is high or low but not how high or how low.
A few years ago there were defective units floating around (possibly fakes/knock offs) that were inaccurate. It is best to buy one directly from Brinsea than from Amazon.
that is so true!
 
Eggs hatch out. Here's the 21 days of incubation chart .
Had 20 hach with the Farm inavotor incubator. Two where not fertile, 3 gave up by day 10. So had 66% hatch rate in the F.I incubator.
My Delaware hen gave up about 3 weeks in. So those eggs didn't hatch.
Over all the Govee works pretty good. Next time I think I'll try and place in a better place instead of off to one side.
Screenshot_20200927-191004_Govee Home.jpg
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