Hi, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.
my main question is do I add water or not?
One reason you see such conflicting advice is that different people have different conditions. Different things work.
To hatch, an egg needs to lose a certain amount of moisture. Mother Nature was kind to us in that she gave a window that works, you do not have to be that precise. But you do need to be within that window. Some people obsess over that and try to be very precise while others are a bit more relaxed and still do pretty well.
Each egg is different. Depending in several different things in how the hen put that egg together some lose moisture at different rates. Eggs lose moisture before incubation starts, the longer they are stored and the drier the storage conditions the more moisture they have lost when incubation starts. Incubators are different. The locations where the incubators are have different temperatures and moisture levels of the air going into the incubator.
What all this means is that the ideal humidity in the incubator can vary by egg. You are not trying to get the perfect humidity for each individual egg, you are trying to get a humidity that lets the greatest number of eggs hatch. I'm grateful Mother Nature gave us such a big window to work with.
For some people that "best" humidity may be around 30%. For others 50% may work best. I have no idea where you will fall.
My suggestion for this hatch is to be as consistent as you can and see what happens. Adjust future hatches based on your results. If you are not consistent how will you know what to adjust, if you need to adjust anything? Following the manufacturer's recommendations is probably a pretty good starting point.
I also suggest getting a hygrometer so you can see what is going on. I did not calibrate mine so I don't know if it is reading high, low, or spot on. I don't care (that should really upset the purists). Through trial and error when mine is reading around 39% to 40% it will work well. I got decent hatches at 45% but through tweaking I figured 40% was a tiny bit better.
Reading some posts on the internet and on this forum can cause panic. Some people honestly believe if you don't do something exactly the way they do you are causing the failure of civilization as we know it. The reality is that there are almost always different ways to do things that can work well. Some things work well for some people but not others. It's a journey, not a destination. If you read something that makes you feel uncomfortable or worried, ask for a second opinion.
Lots of what ive read, says extra humidity is very important, yet in with a hen humidity levels wouldn't suddenly get higher would they?
Humidity in the incubator is important during incubation to control moisture loss. Humidity during hatch is important to control shrink-wrap. Shrink-wrap is where the membrane around the embryo dries out and shrinks tightly around the chick so it can't hatch. That's why we raise humidity during lockdown. This is something that causes a lot of panic. Shrink-wrap is real, it can happen, but it seldom does even if the incubator is dry or you open it and let the humidity escape. I leave the incubator closed during hatch to reduce the risk of shrink-wrap unless I have an emergency to deal with. Since the chicks can live longer than 72 hours after hatch as they absorb the yolk I don't have many emergencies.
Studies have shown that hens can control humidity levels under them during hatch. That's one of many reasons I leave my broody hens alone during hatch, so I have less risk of messing things up.
