Anyone use a separate hatching chamber?

[CrazyTalk]

I'm using a nice lab/medical grade cabinet incubator this year - and it's been fantastic about temperature stability all throughout the process - it's pretty much impossible to keep the humidity up though - it basically sucks fresh air in the bottom and exhausts out the top. I'm running a pretty constant 25% humidity - which has been great as far as most of the incubating goes. I'm getting great set-to-lockdown numbers.

Hatching has been a bit tough though - even with tubs of water, sponges, etc, I can't seem to get humidity above 35% at times - there's just too much air moving through the thing. About half of the chicks (the stronger ones) hatch out quickly, and do great - the ones that take a while though tend to get into the state where even with misting the membrane just becomes a sticky mess and they need to be helped.

Does anyone with a big incubator like this use a second one just for the last couple days/hatching/etc? If not how do you deal with these sort of humidity issues?

For those of you who dry hatch, is it just closed container, and the moisture from the eggs keeps things reasonable?

 

[Torch404]

You could rig up and aquarium pump into a large jar of water. The bubbling would cause more humidity and you could even pull the tube off the pump and fill the jar without opening the bator. Maybe put trays of water by the intake vents?