Egg weight vs air cell size

[PippinChicken]

Hi everyone,

I'm incubating my first eggs and have a humidity question. They were shipped and all arrived with detached air cells. Yesterday I weighed them and candled them to retrace the air cells (worried about them growing in funky shapes). They are less than a week into incubation and the air cells looked a bit larger than I was expecting, which made me think the humidity was too low. However, I calculated their average daily weight loss and they are a bit behind, which would indicate it's too high... What do you all think about using weight loss vs air cell growth to determine the correct humidity? Do you find that one is more reliable or informative than the other?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

IMHO, weight is the most accurate method of calculating moisture loss.
I think commercial hatcheries use weight loss.
https://www.pasreform.com/academy/f...al-weight-loss-profile-during-incubation.html

 

[tuesdaze]

I also use weight loss. I do candle and mark the air cells, but the obsessive-compulsive part of me wants to see the numbers, because I'm not good at visually comparing the air cells, other than to know if they are getting bigger. Lol! I think it would be even more difficult with detached air cells, but I actually have not dealt with any of those yet. I do the weight loss by the numbers with math and also plot them on a graph. Do you think maybe I have too much time on my hands?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

No, you're just fine.
I do it the same way, including the graph.