Constant temperature fluctuations and inadequate humidity... HELP!

[Zrcalo]

:/

So I'm not sure what to do! I cant seem to keep the humidity above 20% in my incubator without having huge temperature fluctuations.

So I'm in arizona and I have a swamp cooler and no thermostat. During the day the temperature inside is about 80 degrees and during the night it's about 65. I've found that opening the door and keeping it open helps buffer the night cold, so it's about 69 during the night.

I had a problem with my incubator. It'd get down to 97 degrees during the night and a few times 101 degrees during the day. I also cannot for the life of me keep the humidity up!! How do you do this??? Every time I add water, the temperature drops to 95 and I have to recalibrate it. Then the next day the water is all dried up and the temperature is too hot.

I've been spraying the eggs with water every day instead of keeping a thing of water inside the incubator. I hatched out two eggs from outside that were abandoned by the hen that was sitting on them, but so far all my eggs I've had in the incubator have not hatched. I havent kept track of time, which I know I should have. I calculated that they should have hatched two weeks ago.

What should I do? The incubator worked fine when we didnt have the swamp cooler on. But I could never get the humidity above 45.

 

[Zrcalo]

:/ so I just candled all the eggs and smashed a bunch of ones that were infertile. smashed the rest and only had one dead-in-shell chick that was partially developed.

Is there any way to make my incubator better? It's a cycled air homemade incubator. It was keeping the humidity and temperature correct when I didnt have the swamp cooler on. Though it couldnt get up to 60% humidity.

 

[Chickens R Us]

I put wet sponges in my incubator the last 3 days of incubation to keep the humidity up. I put them directly under my air vent holes so as them dried I could put more water on them if needed without opening the incubator.

 

[lizzybaxter]

What a good idea. I will make sure to do this on my last 3 days. I am wondering why the humidity spikes now and then, as the room conditions don't change. Do you think it has to do with the development of the chicks? That would make sense....does anyone know?