Ack! Is it my thermometer or my Hovabator???

[FenDruadin]

Today is Day 6, beautifully developing duck eggs, and I look in the incubator this afternoon and the temp reads 102 degrees! I quickly took the lid off the incubator, and let everything cool. Then put it back but... I don't know whether it's the incubator going wonky or the thermometer. When the temp climbed back up again, it settled once again at 102. Why??

This is my fourth time incubating in this Hovabator, and it has always been ROCK SOLID on temps. Never wavering, fluctuating, changing at all, even when the room changes temp. The thermostat has not been touched since it was stabilized before setting these eggs.

The thermometer is an Acu-rite, and has not given me any problems before.

Which is more likely to be messing up? The thermometer or the incubator?

I have turned the temp down a notch, but I'm afraid to drop it too much. Just as afraid to leave it up.

I have just ordered this http://hoeggergoatsupply.com/xcart/product.php?productid=3271&cat=0&page=1 from Hoegger's, in hopes of being able to more accurately calibrate my thermometer and set my mind at ease. But, obviously, I can't do anything until it comes. And I don't want to bother getting another thermometer from Walmart because it's fairly likely to give me a different reading anyway, and who's to say it will be any more accurate? I had finally worked things out with this thermometer to my satisfaction--argh!

Help?

 

[chickenlittle32]

Has the temp in the house gotten warmer? Is it a still or circulated air? Are your vents unplugged? Sorry for all questions, just thinking of the basics...

 

[Fluffy-Butt-Farms]

I'm having my own incubator issues...but i can tell you that my friend runs a sportsman at 102 and 60 humidity...and she hatches a few days early all the time with pretty much high hatch rates. i know you' aren't suppose to run at 102, but it works for her.

my hovabator seems to have 2 settings...and it's brand new...100 or 102. there is not a 101 in it's vocabulary (still air) so i'm leaving it there.

i know here in florida, we've been having a heat wave, so the incubators have been running hotter and i have to keep blowing air into them to cool them off....maybe that's the problem?

 

[FenDruadin]

Thank you! I'm relieved to hear that I'm not likely to kill them at 102! I did candle and saw a heartbeat in at least one of them, so no harm done so far.

The incubator is a Hovabator circulating air model, with automatic turner. The house, if anything, has gotten cooler, but not by much. A few weeks ago, while incubating some chicken eggs, the house dropped into the upper 50s at night and the Hovabator just kept chugging, rock steady 100 degrees, not even the slightest wobble (and the thermometer measures a range, so I can see if there's been ANY fluctuation during the past 24 hours). Right now, the windows are shut and the house is on central HVAC, thermostatically controlled...

I just put a fresh battery in the thermometer, thinking maybe that would have an effect on its reliability. I'm going to assume, for now, that it's the thermometer, and return the Hovabator to the setting that has been working, and stop worrying. The probe thermometer is on its way, then I'll go back to worrying and checking incessantly!

 

[FenDruadin]

It was the thermometer. In an inspired moment

it occurred to me to replace the battery.

Problem solved.