Dry Incubation

[Tiger Shark]

I have a batch of eggs that I’d like to try dry incubation with them. I have heard that dry incubation is where you only put water in at lockdown. I live in Florida and it’s humid; however, I’ll be incubating the eggs in my house. Good idea? I have the janoel 12 incubator and it’s too much of a pain to find the right amount of water to put in it. It says 100 ml every two days but that puts the humidity at 70/80 percent. Would appreciate and help.

 

[sdm111]

Run your incubator without water and see what the humidity runs. Hopefully it'll get down to 25 or 30%. I'm in Louisiana and only hatch from broody hens due to the humidity. Well that and I'm not fretting over temp and stuff lol

 

[sdm111]

Lower is better than higher

 

[Old McRonald]

You may want to try weighing the eggs to monitor moisture loss throughout incubation, target is 13%, someone please correct me if I'm wrong but the acceptable range is 11-15%.

 

[Tiger Shark]

You may want to try weighing the eggs to monitor moisture loss throughout incubation, target is 13%, someone please correct me if I'm wrong but the acceptable range is 11-15%.

Is the humidity okay around 30 percent? That’s what it is with no water.

 

[ValerieJ]

I'm trying to figure out the same thing Tiger Shark. I have taken all the water out of my incubator and it is still up around 48%. I'm going to do the egg weigh test. They average 50g, I I'm hoping for a 2g drop in weight in 6 days. I have no idea how to reduce the humidity when I already don't have any water in the bator. I'm following to see what advice you get. My first try at this, so hoping for the best.

 

[Tiger Shark]

I'm trying to figure out the same thing Tiger Shark. I have taken all the water out of my incubator and it is still up around 48%. I'm going to do the egg weigh test. They average 50g, I I'm hoping for a 2g drop in weight in 6 days. I have no idea how to reduce the humidity when I already don't have any water in the bator. I'm following to see what advice you get. My first try at this, so hoping for the best.

Damn. That’s pretty high for no water. I’m super new to incubating so still learning a lot. It amazes me how hardy the chicks can be though. This is my second batch. My first batch could not have gone more wrong and I still got 7 out of 12 to hatch so don’t get too worked up about the small things. My dog unplugged my incubator for 4 hours on week 1 and I thought for sure they were goners. I was keeping them in my garage the for the first few week and the humidity with no water was around 40 and 50 %. I couldn’t keep a stable temp for a week. I moved the incubator in my house for the last 2 weeks and the humidity dropped. Maybe try that if you don’t already have them in your house. I want to try to do this batch with no water because I’ve heard it works really well.

 

[sdm111]

30 will be ok

 

[HarpyHaven]

I've used paper towels to lower humidity in my incubator to be honest. It's silly, but it worked.

 

[Old McRonald]

Is the humidity okay around 30 percent? That’s what it is with no water.

That's about where mine is running, 25-30% and my weight loss is right on track.