I had some problems getting images off my camera last night. Sorry for the delay in getting up these pictures. So here are the eggs in their new digs as we put them into lockdown.
You can see the 2 dozen eggs foam carton takes up much of the space in the bator. I'm not sure how much more mesh I would have covered with the shelf liner anyway so hopefully all is well there. When they come out
there should be ample room to roam about. On the left hand side, you can see the cutout I made to allow access to the water channels without opening the bator. In retrospect, I should have made at least two cutouts so I would have access to the other channels as well. As it turns out, to up the humidity I ended up pouring water through the cutout and also on the other side of the carton top ("over the wall above" so to speak) so there was some water that just pooled on the surface there. That helped a lot and got the humidity to 65% pretty quickly.
Here's a top view of the set up and you can see the eggs nicely. I think I "thumped" the rightmost egg on the top row (the second egg I placed) so hopefully it's OK. There was another thump as well but now I cannot remember which egg it was.
At the top you can see the cheapie hygrometer I got from
Petco. I calibrated it first and reads high about 2%. Throughout Days 1-18, the humidity ranged between 35% - 42%. The rightmost egg on the bottom row has a "ring" around what appears to be the air cell. I did not notice this when I took the picture but only later as I was looking for the peeping culprit. I was a little worried because it kind of looks like leaching salt deposits (know what I mean?).
Here is my literal window into the chickies' world for the next 3 days with thermometer probe in.
Here is a picture of the top of the bator. When we borrowed it, it was missing one of the vent covers so we decided to use tape as a makeshift solution. You can make out some condensation on it - must be pretty humid in there! I simply remove the tape and insert the straw/funnel through the vent just above my cutout to add water from time to time. There's also enough room to swivel the straw around to position the water elsewhere in the bator, like over on the top half of the carton cover. My thermometer probe used to go through that same vent hole until I got it all wet - really messes up the readings!
Since I've moved it, doing OK.
Here you can see the humidity is just about at 60%. I add 1/4 cup of warm water at a time which boosts the reading to about 65%. Generally speaking, it stays there for only a short while and reaches equilibrium again at 60%. I think this has to do with the fact that I did not put water in the other channels of the bator. Alas, we live and learn. 60% may be good enough and I may decide to stop "disturbing" the system any further - regardless of how minor it may be.
