aliciaplus3
Free Ranging
When I got my first incubator last fall I read everything I could get my hands on..... and many times the advice given here on byc was, and is, to run the humidity lower than what the manual that comes with the incubator calls for, in the 25-35% range some saying as high as 40%. I decided I must be doing something wrong so this spring I ran several hatches Dry, 25% humidity, and found that I had horrible hatches. Loosing many of my babies during the final stages just before hatching with some even piping and then dieing. After a particularly bad hatch, started with 50 eggs and hatched 4 live chicks. I realized that two factors were working against me, my elevation at 6000 feet above sea level, and living in a dry/desert climate. So this last run I kept my humidity around 50% till lockdown and then bumped it and hatched 14 out of 18 in one batch and then 10 out of 12 on shipped eggs. So far I think it made a huge difference, I guess the best thing you can do is keep an eye on your air cells and adjust to your climate/elevation . Also consider the eggs you are hatching, the more porous eggs will loose moisture faster where as the darker shelled ones will loose it slower.
