HELP!! I have been incubating a dozen eggs in a Hovabator with a wafer thermostat and fan. I'm on day 7, and I've kept the humidity at 40 - 45 percent. And the temperature has been stable at 99.3 to 99.7 with no adjustments. When I accidentally overfilled a the water (I'm using a tube through the side into one of the channels), the humidity jumped up to 60. It came down pretty fast (I live in Colorado where it is very dry so I'm not worried about high humidity for a few hours.) My question is that when the humidity jumped up, so did the temperature. I have an Incubator Warehouse thermometer/hygrometer that sits on the turner with the eggs. I also have two different temp./humidity probes from Incubator Warehouse. Those all jumped up to 100.0 to 100.4. I trust the one that lays on the floor because I have had two on-time hatches with it. It went to 100.0. I also have an Egg-O-Meter, that was stable at 100.4 when the others were at ~99.5 (It's about a degree off - reading too high) and it jumped to 101.8 when the humidity went up!! which I don't believe at all. It soon ended up at 102.8, which is crazy. The air temperature never got close to that on the other thermometers, so the internal temp couldn't have gone that high, could it??? The other question is - why did the temperature jump at all when the humidity increased? Are wafer thermometers affected by humidity in a way I don't know about? I haven't adjusted the thermostat and it has returned to a stable 99.7. I'm concerned about when I really increase the humidity during the last three days. I've never hatched in this incubator and I want to understand what is going on before I try. Thanks!!
You're fine. Relax. The eggs aren't so sensitive that they'll fry in a couple of hours in a degree higher than ideal. What probably happened is when you added the water, the air cooled a bit, warming the water. The heater kicked on, warming things up, and boosting the air temperature (and the internal temp of the eggs, although more slowly). Once the water came up to temp, the heater kicked off, but the water acted as a heat sink, and retained more of the heat for longer, making it a bit warmer in the incubator. The important part is that the incubator did return to 99.7. This shows that the thermostat is working properly. The best things to do here are make sure that you add warm water (as close to 99-100* as you can make it, but you don't need to be exact, warm is good) not cold to the incubator, and add a heat sink. A jar or two of water, or some clean rocks will work well. These will help maintain the temperature at the correct point if you do add water that is a bit cool, or when you open the lid. However, the temperature ranges you've mentioned are not worrysome, so in all reality, you don't need to do much. Just keep an eye on things like you have been, and breath.
I don't believe humidity alone would affect the wafer thermostat. One possibility would be some condensation formed on the wafer when you added water. Evaporating condensation on the wafer would cool the thermostat causing a corresponding rise in temperature . Just a guess .
Thank you both!! You're right. It didn't occur to me that increased humidity would cool the air, making the thermostat kick in and heat things up. And that is a good idea to add something that will hold the heat, but I probably won't do that this time. I'll just make sure I add the correct temperature water and not overfill again. I'm breathing again, but I'll stop again on day 18 anyway. Plus I'm going to throw that stupid Egg-O-Meter in the trash. It's not predictable at all. When the humidity jumped, it went up over 2 degrees, while the thermometer I trust showed 1/2 degree higher. That doesn't help my angst!
