Basement Incubating, humidity too high?

[Old McRonald]

For years I've incubated quail eggs in my incubator in the basement to keep the ambient temperature more stable and would say it has worked well with high hatch rates and I don't recall ever having a hatched chick with any issues. Last year I hatched out multiple batches of orpington chicks and had a lot of issues with gooey chicks and poor hatch rates, so much that my last batch I did a "dry" hatch. All eggs I've been hatching were shipped, quail and chickens. I have similar results with a Farm Innovators still air styro as my homemade air circulated wooden one, slightly better results with the homemade one I believe due to better air circulation. I always clean both after using with 10-1 bleach spray.

On the "dry" hatch my humidity never got below 20% and I only added a few tablespoons of water once because it hit 20%, until lockdown when I added a container with a sponge and still only got up to 50%. The temperature was steady every batch at 100-101 with multiple thermometers. I still had a gooey one that didn't survive and another that didn't walk for a few days and at almost 4 months now still isn't "right", walks like it's squatting down. Also a few roosters from earlier hatches would go lame at a few months old. It seems to me my humidity is too high regardless of the numbers I'm seeing. My last 2 batches I numbered the eggs and took starting weights and made a spreadsheet so I could anticipate water loss at any given day on any egg. They seemed to be right on track according to my numbers. I only weighed a few random eggs once a week.

My first step is I'm going to get a better quality hygrometer and calibrate it so I feel confident in my numbers, all humidity readings I have given are suspect to me at this point. Secondly I will move the incubator to the main floor to hopefully dry them out a little more.

Now comes my question, does anyone else incubate in the basement? With or without these issues? I live in the midwest so we do get pretty muggy but I have a walkout basement with almost half of it being above ground level so it doesn't feel extremely damp but the issues I am having makes me think it is too damp for incubating. The hygrometer usually reads 35-50% but this is the same one I use in the incubator so my faith in it is pretty low.

 

[aart]

Now comes my question, does anyone else incubate in the basement? With or without these issues? I live in the midwest so we do get pretty muggy but I have a walkout basement with almost half of it being above ground level so it doesn't feel extremely damp but the issues I am having makes me think it is too damp for incubating. The hygrometer usually reads 35-50% but this is the same one I use in the incubator so my faith in it is pretty low.

I too have a walkout...with hot water heat and no AC...so it's dry in the winter and humid in the summer. But I only hatch in the late winter/early spring...so too dry is usually a concern.

I'd suggest you test both your therms and hygros...and measure humidity outside bator as well as inside. Do you trace your air cells to monitor moisture loss?
I would guess your trouble may have more to do with the shipped eggs.

 

[Old McRonald]

I don't trace air cells, my candler doesn't do great on brown eggs which is why I went to weighing instead.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I too weigh eggs rather than candle. In fact, I don't currently use a hygrometer at all. A gram scale makes all that unnecessary.
I incubated in my basement for about 3 years or so. I used a refurbished old Little Giant, a new Little Giant and a large homemade wooden cabinet incubator with a separate hatcher drawer.
It is humid year round here.
My house is a 115 year old brick house and the stone basement is half way above ground all around the house and it does tend to be a bit more humid because of being below ground but for incubation, I think it being so much cooler is more of a problem. It is between 55F and 65F year round. That requires the incubators to cycle much more frequently. I am currently running a Sportsman incubator and a Sportsman hatcher in a spare upstairs bedroom. I want to again move incubation to the basement but I need to make some changes. I'm going to run a gas line to a basement office, insulate the room and use a gas heater to bring the temp in the room up to 80F. Then the incubators will run much more efficiently.
You can take your current hygrometer outside, enter your zip code on Accuweather or other weather site to get your current humidity, then compare to your hygrometer.

 

[Old McRonald]

The room where I do my incubating is kept at 70+ as it also serves as my fish room, that being said the humidity does get a little higher in there, however we also run a dehumidifier to maintain a comfortable level, 40-45%. On my gram scale all of my weights during incubation were right at where I wanted to be but still always just above the target weight, never below with adding only a couple of tablespoons of water until lockdown. I may try moving the incubator to the main floor to get lower humidity to help dry them out just a little bit more.

I am also going to invest in better monitoring equipment, as I said earlier I had 3 thermometers giving the same readings. I will take them to work and check them against our "certified" unit that we use to check thermometers in the hospital, if it's good enough for people it should be good enough for chickens! I will try the accuweather humidity to check my cheapo digital Wal-mart hygrometer. The quality lab I worked in for 28 years we always had more faith in our old dial analog hygrometers than digital ones!

I still have it in my head with the issues I'm seeing is the eggs aren't losing enough moisture for the chicks to develop properly. I would say 1 out of 5 chicks either has issues at hatching or develop hip/joint issues at a few months of age.

 

[aart]

I will take them to work and check them against our "certified" unit that we use to check thermometers in the hospital, if it's good enough for people it should be good enough for chickens! I will try the accuweather humidity to check my cheapo digital Wal-mart hygrometer. The quality lab I worked in for 28 years we always had more faith in our old dial analog hygrometers than digital ones!

Ah, you have experience with true calibration!
Why I use a medical therm for testing mine,
tolerance(0.3-0.5°F) is much better than any other.

Accuweather may differ from your location, and it ain't gonna read what's in your house.
The salt method is pretty accurate.

Digitals depend on batteries, they can go off as batteries fade in power.

 

[Mosey2003]

If you hatch enough eggs, you're going to get a certain number of culls.

What are you feeding them? The lameness months later I wouldn't necessarily equate with hatching. The one that never stood right, yes, but not the other various cockerels.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The room where I do my incubating is kept at 70+ as it also serves as my fish room, that being said the humidity does get a little higher in there, however we also run a dehumidifier to maintain a comfortable level, 40-45%. On my gram scale all of my weights during incubation were right at where I wanted to be but still always just above the target weight, never below with adding only a couple of tablespoons of water until lockdown. I may try moving the incubator to the main floor to get lower humidity to help dry them out just a little bit more.

I am also going to invest in better monitoring equipment, as I said earlier I had 3 thermometers giving the same readings. I will take them to work and check them against our "certified" unit that we use to check thermometers in the hospital, if it's good enough for people it should be good enough for chickens! I will try the accuweather humidity to check my cheapo digital Wal-mart hygrometer. The quality lab I worked in for 28 years we always had more faith in our old dial analog hygrometers than digital ones!

I still have it in my head with the issues I'm seeing is the eggs aren't losing enough moisture for the chicks to develop properly. I would say 1 out of 5 chicks either has issues at hatching or develop hip/joint issues at a few months of age.

Since all the eggs were shipped, I might consider issues after hatch to be related to the breeder flock as it relates to genetics and nutrition.
I highly recommend either a Brinsea Spot Check thermometer and an Thermoworks RT301WA for extremely accurate thermometers that don't cost an arm and a leg.
https://www.thermoworks.com/RT301WA
I prefer the latter because the Brinsea has a narrow range so if it is high or low, it just has a H or L on the display. You don't know how high or low.
I have a GQF dial thermometer and it reads about 2F low from my Thermoworks.
If your hatches aren't early or late, the temperature has probably been OK.
Thermoworks has hygrometers but for lower cost, I recommend a humidor hygrometer.
https://www.cigarsinternational.com/shop/hygrometers/1800042/?v=5000

 

[Old McRonald]

Digitals depend on batteries, they can go off as batteries fade in power.

So true, when digital voltmeters start giving wacky readings it's time to change batteries.

If you hatch enough eggs, you're going to get a certain number of culls.

What are you feeding them? The lameness months later I wouldn't necessarily equate with hatching. The one that never stood right, yes, but not the other various cockerels.

I agree but I don't like 1 of 5 so much, hoping if I get things a little drier I won't get any more gooey chicks and hoping for better developement.

Feeding Nutrena Medicaticated Chick Starter. Not sure how it compares to other feed.

Since all the eggs were shipped, I might consider issues after hatch to be related to the breeder flock as it relates to genetics and nutrition.
I highly recommend either a Brinsea Spot Check thermometer and an Thermoworks RT301WA for extremely accurate thermometers that don't cost an arm and a leg.
https://www.thermoworks.com/RT301WA
I prefer the latter because the Brinsea has a narrow range so if it is high or low, it just has a H or L on the display. You don't know how high or low.
I have a GQF dial thermometer and it reads about 2F low from my Thermoworks.
If your hatches aren't early or late, the temperature has probably been OK.
Thermoworks has hygrometers but for lower cost, I recommend a humidor hygrometer.
https://www.cigarsinternational.com/shop/hygrometers/1800042/?v=5000

Feeding Nutrena Medicaticated Chick Starter. Not sure how it compares to other feed.

After looking at the humidor hygrometer/thermometers and the tighter tolerances on them I will definitely be going that route!

 

[ronott1]

Incubating eggs below 20% is not good. That is the range of death during incubation.

Like Chicken canoe said, the issue with sticky chicks is more likely from shipping stress. When and egg is damaged, it takes energy to heal and that energy is taken away from proper development.

You already are doing very well with temps and humidity calibration so to get better hatches with shipped eggs:

1. Do not do a rest without incubation before putting them into the incubator. Either hand turn them or do not turn them for a day.
2. Use humidity of 30 to 35%. Do not go over 60% or below 25%. 65 to 70% during lockdown.
3. from day 8 to 18, use a cool down cycle

Try this for the next hatch and see if things go better