Help Miss Prissy

[Sugar Sand Farm]

My DH and 11 year old grandson decided to build an incubator following your guidelines. My grandson did the work and DH supervised. He did a wonderful job. We took an old ice chest and he went to work. We have had it up and running for two days but we are having trouble. The temperature keeps changing we can not get it to level out. We are using a 25 watt bulb and the thermostat you suggested. My grandson wired the thermostat beside the light builb does that make a difference? Also his vent holes are on 1/4 inches do they need to be bigger. Right now the temp goes off at 101.1 51hum. then doesnt come back on until its 94.5 and the humidity is 61% Does that sound right? The lower the temp goes the higher the humidity goes. We have two bottles of water in there as when we put a shallow pan in it was way to much. We are in Florida so we have alot of humidity. the room temp is 78 as we have the air on. We should be able to turn it off tomorrow as its getting cold again here. Any help you can give would be appreciated. Micki

 

[4-H chicken mom]

I built an incubator like Miss Prissy's also. Do you have a fan also? This helps stablize the temps better. Your humidty should be around 50-55%. Your 101 temp is not that bad for a still air bator. You may just have a themostat that is not working properly. Is your thermometer close to the themostat? Are these readings you are getting from the water wiggler? Mine has been holding steady at 99.5-100.5 when the light goes off. I put a towel over mine to keep the heat in.

 

[Sugar Sand Farm]

Yes we have a fan these temps are from the water wiggler.They drop to 98.1 with the light off the humidity is OK as we took one of the bottle out and its sitting now around 50% sometimes 49% I will try the towel over the box to see if this helps Yes the thermometer is near the thermostat is that wrong Thanks Micki

 

[4-H chicken mom]

This is what mine looks like. The thermostat is about 4 inches from the bulb. Move the thermometer away from the light. It won't give you a good reading if it's too close to the bulb. Hope this helps.

 

[MissPrissy]

Sorry. I have been dealing with a house of sick kids this week and just now saw this.

You will have to play around with the combination of bulb wattage until you get it stable. Each of mine has a different size bulb. A 25 watt ceiling fan light bulb and a 25 watt chandelier light bulb does have a different effect.

Is the room tmp stable? Did you made vent holes? How about your humidity. The humidity and air temps work hand in hand.

I keep my thermostat on the level with where the eggs will be.

You just have to tweak it until you get it right.

For a little more money you can order a thermostat from GQf if you can't get yours regulated.

I do know some people get everything to work like clockwork from the very beginning and others it takes a lot of tweaking.

The main thing is too keep the temps in the water wiggler stable. The best temp would be 99.5 but they do flux from 98 - 101 even on the best days. The local weather plays a big part in it too. My humidity is so high I rarely need water the first 18 days.

Also you can put in a few jars of 100 degree water to act as a heat sink. Water doesn't like to change temps as quickly as air will.