*emergency* not sure how to get incubator temperatures down!

[XxPandaxX]

I had my incubator stable for hours before hand and then I put 2 dozen eggs in. Now part of them are too hot and some of them are too cold. The hot ones are 103 degrees going on 104 and the cold ones are 89 degrees!! I moved the colder ones closer to the heat lamp (home made incubator). I had the fan inside the incubator and next to the eggs but now i've moved it onto the top, blowing directly onto the eggs. The temperatures are now a 99 and the cold are at 92. I also took off a towel from the top to let some of the heat out. Any suggestions anyone?

 

[WalnutHill]

Sounds like your thermostat or heat probe might be in the wrong place! Pictures of your incubator would be helpful in trying to get your temps in line. Are the eggs directly on the floor, or on a raised mesh? Do you have a baffle between the eggs and heating element, or a heat source shining down into the incubator?

While you are working on it, put the hot eggs in the coolest places, and the coolest eggs in the hottest places to equalize the temperatures. You may have to move them several times until you get the temps right to keep them developing evenly.

You should not need a towel to hold in heat. The thermostat should do the work of controlling temperatures.

 

[XxPandaxX]

Since you said nothing should retain the heat, I took off the towel and some aluminum foil I had on there to reflect the heat back down. Then, I put the fan back inside the incubator and now all seems to be going well and the fan seems to be doing it's job although the colder ones are still a little too cold for optimal heat, I'll be fine. I think it may have spiked a couple of eggs though - hopefully I didn't lose any embryos. Maybe if the external temp was 104 the internal hadn't reached 104 yet. Here's a photo of the incubator. The thermometer under the light now reads 98 and the other reads 96. I think I may place the aluminum over the cold side to boost the temp a little bit.

 

[WalnutHill]

With that setup you won't be able to get consistent heat. Try using a much, much smaller bulb...perhaps 60 watts. 40 may be enough. You don't want to bake the eggs.

Those thermometers are also prone to be inaccurate. A calibrated thermometer or two are essential when setting up an incubator. Once the calibrated thermometer next to the common one has stabilized at the correct incubator temperature, mark the card on the common incubator at the correct temperature point and ignore the labels.

If you just set the eggs, the short spike in temp should not do any harm. If they've been in there more than a couple of days it's a different story.

If you don't want to downsize the bulb, a metal shield above the eggs to diffuse heat would help. It's not the intensity of the heat, but the consistency that matters.

 

[MeepBeep]

Light is really close to the eggs, try putting a heat shield with aluminum foil in front of the light to send the heat upwards and not directly at the eggs and let the fan circulate the warm air... Or turn the light away from the eggs if possible, right now you have a hot beam of light baking the eggs under it...

 

[XxPandaxX]

Alright looking for a smaller wattage of bulb but I think all I have is flourescent which isn't gonna give off any heat so I'm working on covering up the eggs as soon as possible with some wire mesh or something.

The thermometers are indeed inaccurate but I already calibrated them before I set the eggs and they were 6 degrees ahead! I used the freezing test. Yes, I just set the eggs. Do you know of any other thing that I could put above the eggs? There's a towel underneath them. Should I take the towel from under them to get them further away from that light?

 

[XxPandaxX]

I could put aluminum under the egg cartons to try and reflect some of the heat back up, but right now it really looks like it's going well. Good temperature on the cold and hot side. I think the fan has evened it out for the most part. Should I bother adjusting or not yet?

 

[WalnutHill]

You could take them out of the carton and lay them on the floor.

A mesh screen shaped like an upside down U with foil on the outside should help, but the real fix is a smaller incandescent bulb. You're right in that a CFL won't do the job. Any hardware or grocery store will have a bulb that will do the job. Try a 60w first.

If you are comfortable with your current setup, keep rotating the eggs hot to cold for a few days while monitoring temps. You need to turn them anyhow so just rotate the cartons too, left carton to the right, right carton to the left.

 

[MeepBeep]

Can you move the light further away or direct it away from the eggs? As long as that light is focused and so close to the eggs it's going to heat up the eggs under like an oven, while the ones off to the sides won't get enough... You need to get the eggs in the shade and away from the focused beam of hot light...

 

[XxPandaxX]

I moved the cartons over to the sides of the incubator and put some humidity rags where the light was on the eggs. I'm dry incubating anyway so it's not too big a change - plus I have a nice humidifier for the entire room that the incubator is in. See the thing is, it's a flood light. So it looks like it's so huge and bright and 250 watts but it's actually only 65.