➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

Oh, Kiki!
Hygrometers are calibrating. Fan installed and running. Monitoring temperature and will soon be monitoring humidity.

Some burning smell, but I hope that is just the fan wearing in. No open flames after 4 hours, so I think I'm good. The egg turner got loud, but still appears to be working.

Eggs next year!

So at what point is overkill? 3 hygrometers and if you include the hygrometer thermometers that aren't calibrated due to probe design, 5 thermometers.

Not real happy with the digital thermometer. It swings more than the mercury one. The mercury was spot on in ice water.
 
Oh Muddy, sorry about #8. Congrats on the 7!!! :celebrate
thanks! overall i am very happy with this hatch! 9 shipped eggs (from meyer) 1 dud, 7 hatches....that’s a record for me! i’m a bit upset about #8...wondering if I had left it alone for another day but it probably would have been dIS if I had. risk we take with hatching i guess.
 
Humidity is important. It is not critical that you know exactly what the humidity is. Many people control their humidity without ever knowing what the actual humidity is.

Read the humidity section in Hatching Eggs 101 by @Sally Sunshine

You can monitor the weight loss of the eggs to establish what the proper humidity is for your situation without ever knowing what the humidity actually reads. I guarantee you that no chicken can read a hygrometer or a wet bulb and the broody breeds do a great job without knowing what the humidity is.

+/- 5% accuracy is acceptable. Not knowing what the lower limit for your specific hygrometer can cause problems. I have come across a lot of people that think you cannot achieve 0% humidity because the hygrometer that they are using will only read down to 20% humidity. You can drive the humidity in an incubator to 0% because enough heat can remove all water if there is none to replace it.

If the ambient humidity is 60% in the room that the incubator is located in, you should be able to run the incubator without adding any water during the incubation phase. You would only need to add water for the final stage often called lockdown.

RUNuts, it's a "hit or miss" with any of the cheaper hygrometers. I have so many different brands, styles, and they all have different levels of accuracy. Some have >.1% error others have ( <16% error, I don't use them ) and I have 3 that are "dead on" every time I calibrate. When I perform a salt test on my hygrometers, I let them equilibrate for at least 12 hours, then I re-test to see if I get the same readings. I do this before each hatch, not just one time per season.
Another thing I have on all my incubators, is a humidifier and a regulator. I can set the humidity at any % I need or want and it stays where I set it.
The reason I went to this system is because years ago I hatched many different species of birds and not all had the same humidity requirements. I didn't have to worry if I got to much water in the troughs or to little. Didn't have to open the bator to add water... was just a "no brainer".
Like you, I too am a perfectionist. I setup and turn on my bators a month in advance of setting any eggs. Everything is dialed in and working as it should be before I set any eggs. Yeah, it's alot of work but if I have fertile eggs, I'm guaranteed a great hatch. If you get unlucky and have a bunch of infertile eggs, all the 'high tech' stuff you have isn't going to give you a great hatch but at least I can't blame it on my incubators.

Ordered 2 hygrometers. Same brand and model. 12 hours in the salt test bag and reading 65% & 62% versus the 75% target. Both surprisingly close in readings. The walmart one at 57%. Accuracy is +/- 5%.:hmm Temperature is 70°F. Later today I will put the bag on top of the running incubator and test at a higher temperature.

Thanks for the input. It is starting to soak in, but I don't grok. Close enough works.
 

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