***code Red Emergency***

[Trailbo]

We have been incubating our RIR's and Leghorn eggs for seven days now and for some reason the humidity has risen and will not go down. It is reading 87% as of right now and has been as high as 92%. The lowest reading was about 70% when we started, which we have done before and gotten it down no problems. This time around the humidity rose within the first 24 hours and will not drop. We have tried both plugs in, one plug out as well as both plugs out. We have a still air styrofoam incubator with an automatic egg turner that we have had several other hatches in without problems. What can we do to remedy this before we have a complete failure? We are afraid if we cannot get the humidity down we will end up drowning our hatch. Please keep any responses short, sweet, and to the point if possible. Thank you for any advice. At this point we are open to anything to help.

 

[NancyinAlaska]

I've never had that much himidity, when I get H20 on my incu windows, I open and wipe the H20 off with a paper towel, and leave both plugs out. If yiou have the temp set correctly, it will keep it where it's supposed to be. Good Luck!!

 

[Trailbo]

That's what is odd. The temp is perfect, and there is no condensation what-so-ever on the windows. We have had some inclement weather in our area that is a bit odd for this time of year, but I'm not so sure that is the culprit. I could be wrong. Hmmm, maybe the hygrometer is out of sync. We'll try that next. Stay tuned for an update.

 

[tnchickenut]

Is it humid outside? The weather effects your incubation....

open the plugs, and you may have to dry up some or all of the water. You can have the lid off for around 2 minutes safely at your stage of incubation, so get some supplies like papertowl and place the eggs on a nice level surface, soak up the water (remember it is the surface area of water that matters with humidity, not depth), and put the eggs all back.

Humidity can fluctuate a wider range than tempature and still not adversely effect the hatch. That said, you don't want to just ignore the problem either. The air sack has to get big enough for the baby to breathe, and at the same time you don't want to dry the egg out and shrink wrap the baby either.

I personally don't worry so much about numbers. I keep little tally marks (with only #2 pencils) on the egg where the air sack starts... this way I can monitor what size it is and when.

Hope this helps you.

 

[katharinad]

Check the eggs! One may be bad and is leaking causing the rise in humidity. Be careful because then can explode. To reduce the humidly you can alway cover some of the tray with aluminum foil to reduce waters surface.
Katharina

 

[tnchickenut]

Quote:
Oh yeah.. I never think of bad eggs because (believe it or not) out of ALL my MANY hatches I have never had one. Good thing katharinad mentioned it!

 

[Trailbo]

Excellent responses. It's getting me thinking, that's for sure. OK, outside humidity is probably about 15 -20%. Not high at all. You say dry up some of the water. There is NO water in the incubator. About the only time I add water is when humidity drops, or during the last 3 days in the hatcher. We just calibrated our hygrometer, but my wife is concerned it may have been compromised in our move. Today she will go to town and buy a new one. We may be ok all this time and a faulty hygrometer may have us freaking out for no reason. I certainly hope that's the case. As a matter of fact we could be low on humidity, and with weather conditions such as they are here now, I'd be more inclined to lean towards low humidity rather than high. That leads me to believe more that the hygrometer is bad. I'll update as soon as we get our new one calibrated and set and get a reading.

 

[joe17]

calibrate your hygrometer. Mine did the same thing................

 

[Trailbo]

Katharinad,
Good tip. Our RIR hens are particularly susceptible to thin shells. We supplement constantly with oyster shell to combat this. Anyway, we did find one with a hairline crack with dried up moisture on the outside bottom of the egg. I'm not so sure that is the only culprit to this problem as the humidity went way high on day two and this egg we found was a day five egg. None the less, we took it out.
Joe17,
Hygrometer was re-calibrated, but still showing about 95%. We are buying a new one today as backup and just to make sure.

Ya'll are awesome. Thank you for all your help. Stayed tuned for updates...

 

[Trailbo]

New Update.....

Our hygrometer was at fault. We purchased a new one, calibrated it and upon placing it in the incubator within a few minutes we were reading about 55% so all is good. We were probably ok the whole time. Thank you all for your advice and being so eager to lend a helping hand. It is very much appreciated. Take care and happy hatching. BTW, if anyone in our area is looking for Leghorn or Rhode Island Red chicks we will have some in about 3 weeks or so. We are in the Esparto, Woodland area of Central California. Post here or send me a note and we can get together somehow. I do not deliver so keep that in mind.

Thank you again