Brinsea octagon 20

[piccolini]

A few years ago I purchased a brinsea octagon 20. For some reason, I have never ha very good hatch rates. It seems like every time, the develope beutifully until the last few days and they just never hatch- or they will pip and die. I have succesfully hatched a few but never with very good odds - my last hatch I set 7 goose eggs, 6 developed normally until the last couple days and then only 3 ended up hatching. I have been told it is probably a problem with my humidity. I have a thermometer that tells both temp and humidity but have always had difficulty keeping the humidity consistant. If anyone has any tips they will be greatly appreciated. I was thinking about doing another hatch

 

[Stacykins]

To test to see if your hygrometer is working, you can do the salt test.

You will need:
the hygrometer
bottle cap or something similar to hold salt/water mixture
ziplock bag
salt
water

Pour some salt in the bottle cap so you have a nice little mound. You don't want it to overflow, but you want to have a good amount. Next, wet the salt with normal, room temperature water until it is damp. You want all the salt to be wet, but you don't want it soaking wet with a lot of excess water. Lastly, pop the salt/water mixture and the hygrometer into a ziplock bag, seal it, and leave it for eight hours. Don't cheat!

The mixture of salt and water always brings the ambient humidity to 75%, so with this, you can see how off your hygrometer actually is. I just did this last night with a hygrometer I thought wasn't working right, and was correct, my other one read 70% (+/- 5% is good enough for me since now I know it is off), and the one that really wasn't working read 47%! That one is getting tossed, it is unreliable as all gettout!

 

[piccolini]

Thank you! I will deffinately try that. Hopefully that is the problem and I can just get a new one