Farm Innovator 2150 humidity issues

[BuckeyeFoodie]

So I am pretty new to incubating, and since I wanted dummy-proof I bought a nurture right 360. I love it! My first two hatches were great.

However, this time around I have eggs due to hatch at different times, and because I'm not financially able to get a second NR360 at the moment, I purchased a Farm Innovator's 2150 still-air model to use purely for lockdown and hatching.

I CAN NOT get the humidity above 60%. I have taped shut all the little holes in the bottom of the bator so I could fill it with water (it has a solid inch of water filling the entire bottom), eventually taped the ventilation holes in the lid as well, and even tried taping the seam between lid and bottom just to see what would happen. I think that got me to 62%....

Egg #1 was a few days ahead of #s 2 and 3, and I had to assist the hatch last night after waiting 13 hours for the chick to unzip more than the new pips it managed before the membrane started to dry. Chick is ok, but I really don't want to go through this with every egg this clutch (13 more total, and I have a second clutch that is 14 days behind, so I cant just leave them in the NR360).

I just put a seed-starting heat mat under the bator to see if that helps give it a boost, and I'm getting a space heater for the laundry room where I'm set up (it costs a fortune to heat our house, so we keep the thermostat at around 60) but does anyone have any other ideas?

 

[FortCluck]

Are you basing your humidity off of what the gauge says on the incubator or do you have a hygrometer inside?

 

[BuckeyeFoodie]

Are you basing your humidity off of what the gauge says on the incubator or do you have a hygrometer inside?

The gauge, and what happened with the first chick - I dont have a secondary hygrometer yet, it arrives tomorrow.

 

[FortCluck]

The gauge, and what happened with the first chick - I dont have a secondary hygrometer yet, it arrives tomorrow.

I have the farm innovator 4250 and my humidity is 10% lower than what my calibrated hygrometer says.

I wouldn't trust the gauge on the incubator. I wouldn't cover all the holes on the top because you risk suffocating the chicks because there is no air exchange happening.

Do you have condensation at the top of the incubator? If you do it means the humidity is way too high. What humidity are you trying to get to? Above 60%?

I keep mine in the 50s for lockdown, any higher and the chicks have a hard time hatching.

I would wait 24-48 hours after an external pip or zip to assist a hatch. They can breathe on their own at that point.

 

[BuckeyeFoodie]

I have the farm innovator 4250 and my humidity is 10% lower than what my calibrated hygrometer says.

I wouldn't trust the gauge on the incubator. I wouldn't cover all the holes on the top because you risk suffocating the chicks because there is no air exchange happening.

Do you have condensation at the top of the incubator? If you do it means the humidity is way too high. What humidity are you trying to get to? Above 60%?

I keep mine in the 50s for lockdown, any higher and the chicks have a hard time hatching.

I would wait 24-48 hours after an external pip or zip to assist a hatch. They can breathe on their own at that point.

I should probably clarify my original post to mention that with actual eggs in there that I do uncover half of the top air holes. I had some condensation on the lid, but it was from adding hot water when I initially set up the incubator - which, btw, did register in the high 80's, low 90's before everything equalized.

I'm trying to get to 70% because that's where everyone keeps telling me I should be for hatching. I also agree on generally waiting longer to assist, but I could see hard dry membrane locking the chick in place, and the chick was getting weaker every time I checked (via camera, not lifting the lid). I used the coconut oil method I saw someone here mention to moisten a dried membrane, removed a little bit of shell and chick was out 15 minutes later, no blood and fully absorbed albumen.

 

[Skippersnh]

Humidity at 60 is plenty

 

[FortCluck]

You're hatching chicks at 70% humidity?

I was trying to aim for 65% because that's what I was told... I was so wrong in listening to that information. It can all depend where you live too. I live on the east coast and it's pretty humid here. When the eggs started hatching at 65% humidity my humidity jumped to 80%... It became a disaster.

I have another hatch going and I'm keeping my humidity lower than 40% until lockdown then I'm aiming for 50s during hatch.

I had a lot of chicks that were sticky when I did 65% and I lost 9... 21/30 hatched out of my eggs.

This time my eggs seem to be doing way better with lower humidity.

 

[BuckeyeFoodie]

OK, if everyone here is recommending a hatch humidity in the low-mid 60 range, why on earth does almost every resource recommend getting up to 75%, including many of the articles I've read here on BYC? I'm not doubting the hive mind here (and I'm keeping my hatcher in the 60's), I'm just questioning the conflicting data?