Help!

[Bird123]

Hi, I am new to poultry and I was bought a trio of ducks from my parents a few months back, which I love dearly. I have decided to expand my brood and bought an incubator and put 5x Silver Appleyard eggs in it a couple of days ago.
The temperature has stayed perfect at 37.5 degrees (which I have also confirmed with two reliable thermometers). However, I am struggling with humidity trying to keep it around 55%. I put in 100ml of water at the beginning as this is what the incubators instructions ordered, but when I came back the humidity was over 70%. Eek!
I dried it out a bit and it made little difference. I then comletely dried out the incubator with paper towels and now the hygrometer reads 55%....
Basically..is it okay to run the incubator with no water in it if humidity is fine? If it drops below I will place half a teaspon in.
I have never hatched anything before and I am not exactly hoping for great results but I would at least like to give the duckies a chance! I'm mostly confused as no water and 100ml is a big difference. Thanks!

 

[ronott1]

Hi, I am new to poultry and I was bought a trio of ducks from my parents a few months back, which I love dearly. I have decided to expand my brood and bought an incubator and put 5x Silver Appleyard eggs in it a couple of days ago.
The temperature has stayed perfect at 37.5 degrees (which I have also confirmed with two reliable thermometers). However, I am struggling with humidity trying to keep it around 55%. I put in 100ml of water at the beginning as this is what the incubators instructions ordered, but when I came back the humidity was over 70%. Eek!
I dried it out a bit and it made little difference. I then comletely dried out the incubator with paper towels and now the hygrometer reads 55%....
Basically..is it okay to run the incubator with no water in it if humidity is fine? If it drops below I will place half a teaspon in.
I have never hatched anything before and I am not exactly hoping for great results but I would at least like to give the duckies a chance! I'm mostly confused as no water and 100ml is a big difference. Thanks!

Hi and Welcome to BYC

Yes, you can run the incubator without water if the humidity is correct. In certain humid places you may need to use a de humidifier to get the humidity correct for your incubator. As humidity changes from season to season you have to adjust the amount of water to maintain humidity.

I hope you have a great hatch!

 

[Bird123]

That's just what I wanted to hear! Thank you so much. That may have seemed like a silly question haha!

 

[ronott1]

That's just what I wanted to hear! Thank you so much. That may have seemed like a silly question haha!

No, not silly at all!

Click on the link in my signature file with a lot of incubating tips.