Brinsea Ovation 56 EX humidity

[SpicyDill]

Lockdown began yesterday for one set of eggs in there, and I've got an early pip already today. The humidity is giving me grief. The water overflowed the water reservoir, filled the reservoir on the opposite side, has a fine film of water all over the floor, and the humidity won't get above 56%. Lockdown started just last night, and I'd planned to check it in the morning and add some sponges, etc., this morning if it wasn't where it needed to be ... but now that I've got a pip, I can't open the lid.

...which also means that I can't re-seat the egg turner that has unseated itself yet again, so my other eggs aren't getting turned.

 

[SpicyDill]

Okay, I was bad and popped open the lid to check on my pipped chick (alive, just snoozing) and fix the turner. While I was at it, I shoved a wet sponge in there. Fingers crossed!!!

 

[SpicyDill]

I've got one baby out and the first pip is still struggling with unzipping, so I may have to end up assisting. It's possible there was some shrinkwrap going on with the humidity issues + lid lifting. Today is day 21, so hopefully the remaining 3 eggs get going soon!

I heard back from Brinsea support (Rupesh is WONDERFUL) and I think the humidity problem is user error from poor placement of the evap blocks. D'oh! So before the next wave goes into lockdown, I'll fiddle with the placement and see if that does the trick.

These poor eggs have been through so much! Shipping (including one batch getting lost in the mail), two power outages, and my own learning curve while I learn this machine.

 

[SpicyDill]

I assisted and it's doing just fine now! I moved both to the brooder because they were drinking from the water reservoir. I've candled the 3 remaining eggs; 1 looks like a quitter, 1 has internally pipped but isn't moving/peeping (wait and see, I guess), and 1 very loudly started yelling at me from inside the egg when I picked it up, so I put it back!

 

[Pollito Pelon]

I figure putting a cut piece of cloth in the water tray will keep humidity stable

 

[SpicyDill]

I figure putting a cut piece of cloth in the water tray will keep humidity stable

That doesn't really increase the surface area of the water, which is how you increase the humidity/hold it. I tried sponges, but honestly, the evap blocks (or the knockoff I linked in my previous post) work best. Brinsea support most recently suggested making sure the reservoir cover is OFF and that I allow the block to protrude for best humidity results, and it totally worked -- I didn't need to use the extra reservoir at all during my most recent hatch! I just set turkey eggs in it today and it's holding at 45% just fine, although I can't allow it to protrude as much because of the size of the large egg carriers, so I may end up needing to use the extra reservoir when they hatch. We'll see!

 

[MrsMc]

I'm almost finished my first batch with the Brinsea ovation 56 ex and initially had some issues getting the humidity up for lockdown. Like you @SpicyDill I was pulling my hair out, but in the end I just made sure the little air knob was closed and even put a bit of tape on it and that helped the humidity to rise to the correct level. Once there, I took the tape off and it sat at the correct level. Out of 17 eggs I managed to get 15 to hatch which I am stoked about. I did the first hatch with a cheap amazon incubator and got nothing
@Wootiecat I also seem to have had a similar problem regarding the placement of eggs and not being viable. I didn't go to the trouble of testing everything, just thought they were duds until I read your post. But yes, like you had almost a whole row that needed to be removed at lockdown.
I only had 24 eggs at the beginning and had spaced them with a spare row between them, but next time will try them all on the evaporative block side.
Thanks also for the link for the replacement filters, much appreciated

 

[Pollito Pelon]

I've been hatching without lock down 99.6 and 45 with rotation at 180 minutes

 

[Samanthacr]

Hi all! I just upgraded to a Brinsea Ovation 56 EX and I'm trying to prep it to transfer eggs from my little POS to this one and I've got a problem! I can't seem to get the humidity up over 33-34%. I set it for 40% and it's been faithfully dripping water into the auto reservoir, and it's full now. I decided to manually add water to the other reservoir, and did, but it's only gone up by a single percent. I'd love some suggestions. Considering how hard it is to keep the humidity DOWN in my cheapie, I'm shocked that two full reservoirs aren't doing much to this beast. Running a humidifier isn't an option, it's actually pretty humid in the house right now and I'm not looking to make the household moisture issue worse.

I do have the vent as closed as it will go.

I know it comes with the little fluffy paper evaporating block to add to the reservoir if needed, but are there any alternatives to those? They're pretty expensive for single-use items and shipping them here adds quite a bit to that total, too (I'm in Alaska). Crumpled up paper towel in the reservoir? Sponge? Accordioned cardboard?

I'd read that getting humidity up at lockdown can be a problem in these, but wasn't expecting to have issues just getting it to regular 1-18 levels!

Hi yes I agree they are expensive, Brinsea say to use for every other hatch, well mine after one hatch from new almost disintegrated, thanks for your comments as I wondered if you could use paper towel instead, Brinsea are the same for their card hatching mats they’re ridiculously expensive too, I got a roll of anti slip mat from Amazon an you can wash an reuse it an even if you binned it after each hatch it’s still works out a hell of a lot cheaper than Brinseas.

 

[shaw613]

Hi yes I agree they are expensive, Brinsea say to use for every other hatch, well mine after one hatch from new almost disintegrated, thanks for your comments as I wondered if you could use paper towel instead, Brinsea are the same for their card hatching mats they’re ridiculously expensive too, I got a roll of anti slip mat from Amazon an you can wash an reuse it an even if you binned it after each hatch it’s still works out a hell of a lot cheaper than Brinseas.

I've been running mine nonstop since January at 45-48 and it hasn't wavered. I hatch in a hovabator just for space, but I did hatch in the Brinsea last year. For incubation, I put a piece of paper towel into the well rather than the expensive 'paper'. For hatching, I added water and a damp sponge to the trough that it doesn't drip into, and didn't have an issue at all setting in the 60's. I used shelf liner for hatching mat, and washed it between hatches. Cheap and easy. Sorry you're having troubles ...