Fourth failed hatch...what to do? *Dry Incubation Progress*

[yinepu]

E.M. Silkies :

Quote:
The humidity in the room is about 45%. Ok, I'm about to try again with lower humidity. Hopefully this will work out better.... I may have some more questions though.....

sounds like a plan.. are you going to try dry incubating?​

 

[E.M. Silkies]

Quote:
The humidity in the room is about 45%. Ok, I'm about to try again with lower humidity. Hopefully this will work out better.... I may have some more questions though.....

sounds like a plan.. are you going to try dry incubating?

I am going to try it!! I feel like with my humidity in the room being 45% I ought to be ok. I didn't add any water and I still somehow have a humidity of 60% in the bator. I'm thinking it's going to keep coming down though, because now the red plugs are out. I'll know for sure in a couple hours when I'm able to check again. What do I do if it stays that high with no water inside? My plan is to follow all the dry incubation instructions and see what happens. It can't be any worse than my previous hatches.

. I'm hoping that if all directions are followed correctly, I'll actually have a bunch of babies!

 

[yinepu]

E.M. Silkies :

Quote:
sounds like a plan.. are you going to try dry incubating?

I am going to try it!! I feel like with my humidity in the room being 45% I ought to be ok. I didn't add any water and I still somehow have a humidity of 60% in the bator. I'm thinking it's going to keep coming down though, because now the red plugs are out. I'll know for sure in a couple hours when I'm able to check again. What do I do if it stays that high with no water inside? My plan is to follow all the dry incubation instructions and see what happens. It can't be any worse than my previous hatches.

. I'm hoping that if all directions are followed correctly, I'll actually have a bunch of babies!​

ok.. did you recently clean the incubator?.. if you did that will explain why you have a spike in the humidity.. as it is an incubator draws in air from the surrounding vicinity.. so it will pull in your 45% air from in the room.. it SHOULD lower the humidity as the air is warmed by the heating element (i could be wrong since i am not a physics person..).. but that's how it has happened in my personal experience.. so keep an eye on it for a few days and let me know what happens.. most people that I have seen who need to lower the humidity in the incubator just keep the plugs out.. it has helped them .. personally I never need to lower mine.. since my relative humidity is usually a lot lower than yours

 

[silkiechicken]

Relative humidity is what most measure.

If your 70F room has a 45% relative humidity it holds x amount of water. If that same chunk of air with water was put into a 100F box, the relative humidity would be much less.

That said. I do not measure humidity, just keep an eye on the air cell of the egg and adjust accordingly. There is a picture somewhere on the web showing about how large the air cell should be on day 7, 14 and 18. That said, you could weigh the egg and try to make sure it looses about 10-12% of it's initial fresh weight by day 18.

 

[E.M. Silkies]

Quote:
I am going to try it!! I feel like with my humidity in the room being 45% I ought to be ok. I didn't add any water and I still somehow have a humidity of 60% in the bator. I'm thinking it's going to keep coming down though, because now the red plugs are out. I'll know for sure in a couple hours when I'm able to check again. What do I do if it stays that high with no water inside? My plan is to follow all the dry incubation instructions and see what happens. It can't be any worse than my previous hatches.

. I'm hoping that if all directions are followed correctly, I'll actually have a bunch of babies!

ok.. did you recently clean the incubator?.. if you did that will explain why you have a spike in the humidity.. as it is an incubator draws in air from the surrounding vicinity.. so it will pull in your 45% air from in the room.. it SHOULD lower the humidity as the air is warmed by the heating element (i could be wrong since i am not a physics person..).. but that's how it has happened in my personal experience.. so keep an eye on it for a few days and let me know what happens.. most people that I have seen who need to lower the humidity in the incubator just keep the plugs out.. it has helped them .. personally I never need to lower mine.. since my relative humidity is usually a lot lower than yours

I did just clean it today. I'll see how much it drops as it dries. Is 45 too high for incubation when I'm supposed to be trying dry incubation?

 

[yinepu]

E.M. Silkies :

Quote:
ok.. did you recently clean the incubator?.. if you did that will explain why you have a spike in the humidity.. as it is an incubator draws in air from the surrounding vicinity.. so it will pull in your 45% air from in the room.. it SHOULD lower the humidity as the air is warmed by the heating element (i could be wrong since i am not a physics person..).. but that's how it has happened in my personal experience.. so keep an eye on it for a few days and let me know what happens.. most people that I have seen who need to lower the humidity in the incubator just keep the plugs out.. it has helped them .. personally I never need to lower mine.. since my relative humidity is usually a lot lower than yours

I did just clean it today. I'll see how much it drops as it dries. Is 45 too high for incubation when I'm supposed to be trying dry incubation?​

if your home humidity is at 45% the incubator should drop it to 40 or a bit less.. so wait and see what it levels out as and then go from there.. i would say to shoot for around 40% .. but that's just a guess since I have never done a dry incubation.. but I think 40 should work ok for you.. hopefully someone else can chime in with a better estimate for you

 

[jmc]

i (ignoramus) am watching and hoping to learn; go go e m silkies!

 

[E.M. Silkies]

Thank you everyone for all the responses! I'm excited about trying dry incubation for the first time. I will keep everyone updated on progress and the hatch. Maybe in my case the fifth time will be the charm!! Thanks for the encouragement! It's greatly appreciated!

 

[silkiechicken]

Best of luck!

Check out this page:
http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/resources/egg_to_chick/procedures.html

Dry incubation may not work for all as every household/room is different.

Our winter inside humidity is about 70-85% relative. However, it is about 67/68F and if you fire up the incubator in the winter... humidity will drop to less than 20. Cold air holds VERY little water so a 45% relative humidity in the tropics will make you sweat like mad, while a 45% humidity in the winter will give you terribly chapped lips.

 

[E.M. Silkies]

My incubator is holding 31% humidity. I think that's pretty good for a dry incubation. I read an article here on byc about dry incubation and it said not to touch the bator for the first seven days but on day seven add a tiny bit of water. I'm excited about this and crossing my fingers for a great hatch!!