First time using an incubator - help

[Dgrif5]

Hello, and apologies for the disturbance. We recently had a horrible incident with a fox, and have lost many of our hens and all of our cockerels. To that end, we hope to incubate some of the eggs we have collected, so their legacy can carry on, so to speak. This is our first time incubating outside of using a broody hen, and there seems to be so many differing opinions and advice it's making our head spin (well, mostly mine). We have the Janoel 12 incubator, and have left it running for a few days, making sure it's keeping a steady temperature. It's been wrapped with a towel to help prevent temperature fluctuations, and as it is quite humid here at the moment, no additional water has been added.
We've just added the eggs to it an hour ago, and to try and keep track of the humidity, a cheap hygrometer/thermometer has been put inside, resting on the base out of the way of the moving tray. However, the readings it is showing have me quite concerned. Despite the incubator reading a steady 37.5 degrees C, the device inside has remained at a reading of 35 degrees. in addition, the humidity has remained around 50%, despite the lack of additional water, and this seems a little high. Bear in mind this is a cheap hygrometer/thermometer, and we haven't really had time to properly calibrate it, so it could be way off. Should I trust the incubator and leave it alone, or should I manually raise the temperatures above what it seems to indicate? and should I try to lower the humidity, or just hope it dies down in the next day or so?
Sorry for all the questions, it's just that if this hatch fails, the last eggs of our old hens go with it
Thanks for your time.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Why don't you remove the eggs and order a better hydrogometer/thermometer—one you are sure you can trust? I would not trust the incubator.

As for humidity, you can put a sockful of rice in the incubator to act as a heatsink and to lower the humidity.

 

[chickens really]

Humidity is a bit high but can be lowered with less water. Not an issue being you just started them. What you really need to do is Candle to watch if enough moisture leaves the eggs by the time hatching takes place.
Temperature sounds alright..

 

[Dgrif5]

Thanks for the replies! the issue with removing the eggs, is that they've already been sat around for a few days, and leaving them much longer would apparently drastically reduce their viability according to a bunch of stuff I read (it's been nearly a week already). Thanks for the rice advice, i'll definitely give that a go!
How would I go about checking if enough moisture has left? is that based on the size of the air sac?

 

[chickens really]

Yes..The air cell drastically gets bigger as the birds grow in the egg to accommodate the internal pip before hatching.

 

[Dgrif5]

ah okay, thanks for the information.
There's an update: after leaving it for a an hour or so, the interior reading has gone up to 36 degrees c, so I think it's just taking some time to stabilise. The humidity level has also dropped significantly, down to 35% I've seen varying reports online as to the recommended humidity, ranging from 30% to 50%. should I add some water in, or leave it as-is for now? most of the eggs are pretty small, if that helps.

 

[chickens really]

Incubator should be ran for about 12 hours or more to stabilize before adding in eggs.

 

[Dgrif5]

It had been running for roughly 24 hours or so beforehand, but I guess I took a little too long getting the eggs in, maybe.

 

[chickens really]

It had been running for roughly 24 hours beforehand, but I guess I took a little too long getting the eggs in, maybe.

Things drop as you add in eggs and will stabilize again.

 

[Dgrif5]

ah okay, thanks for all the help. as for the humidity, do you think it's worth adding a tiny bit of water to up it, or is 35-36% ok?