2 More Lockdown Questions

[scrambledmess]

I can't keep the humidity above 60%. I have all the chambers full and I have four soaked maxi-pads in with it (soaked last night). The humidity says 57%. These are turkey eggs and are actually supposed to be above 70% at lock down. Anything else I can do? Is maybe the monitor wrong?

Another question. I am on hour 10 of lock down. When will I see movement in the eggs? I thought the purpose of lock down was so the chick could position itself in the egg to pip. Wouldn't that cause the egg to move already or do you not see movement until closer to hatch?

Thanks!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I can't keep the humidity above 60%. I have all the chambers full and I have four soaked maxi-pads in with it (soaked last night). The humidity says 57%. These are turkey eggs and are actually supposed to be above 70% at lock down. Anything else I can do? Is maybe the monitor wrong?

Is the lid on tight? I had that problem once. I could not understand why the humidity dropped for a long time, but finally noticed the lid had not settled back properly.

It is very possible the monitor is wrong. If you calibrated it, you can raise your cionfidence in it, but even then it is possible something has messed up.

Another question. I am on hour 10 of lock down. When will I see movement in the eggs? I thought the purpose of lock down was so the chick could position itself in the egg to pip. Wouldn't that cause the egg to move already or do you not see movement until closer to hatch?

You may or may not see movement. A lot of times, I don't, but I am not plastered to the incubator watching.

Lockdown is for a lot more than just the chick positioning itself. There are a lot of changes going on inside the egg to prepare for hatch. Also, eggs don't always hatch after exactly 21 days of development for chickens or 28 days for turkeys. There are different things that can affect when an egg actually hatches, average incubating temperature being a big one, but there are several others. Sometimes chciken eggs hatch on Day 19, sometimes on Day 24. The intent of lockdown for chicken eggs on Day 18 is to get into lockdown condition before they start to hatch, but not too far in advance so you don't drown them with the higher humidity. I've had chicken eggs pipping when I went into lockdown, partly due to my incubator being too warm, but other factors were also involved.

So, when will you see movement, if you do. A little before they pip. That could be soon. It could be days away.