Homebator and hatching question

[dimi]

So, I built my own home incubator and am in the process of calibrating it.
I have 2 60W incandescent bulbs and 2 12mm fans blowing on them. I drilled two holes in the 'bator and the temperature seems to be holding up well. However I have a problem bringing humidity down from 60-50%
I covered the water with some foil but still not down to 35-ish, like everyone suggests.

Do you think I should drill more holes, so that humidity has a chance to escape, or just cover even more water surface?

Thanks,
Dimi

 

[BobDBirdDog]

You forgot to mention many things like materials and how long you allowed the unit to run. Humidity is funny that way. You want to leave the bator running full tilt for 24 hours to allow it to stabilize. Give more info and I might be able to offer some suggestions. Dont drill to many holes right now.

 

[dimi]

The material is styrofoam but its not the cheaply made cooler, medical grade cooler they send medications in. Sorry, I have seen this too late and drilled another hole on the opposite side of the two existent holes. For now its been running for about 3 hours and humidity is down to 38, which is good in my books. I will get it to run till morning to see how its doing.

 

[HunterH]

The material is styrofoam but its not the cheaply made cooler, medical grade cooler they send medications in. Sorry, I have seen this too late and drilled another hole on the opposite side of the two existent holes. For now its been running for about 3 hours and humidity is down to 38, which is good in my books. I will get it to run till morning to see how its doing.

I was told to run it at 45-55% humidity until day 14 when you up it to 65%. Why do you want it so low?

 

[BobDBirdDog]

What type of eggs are you planning on hatching that requires such low humidity?

50% is ideal for most eggs, and the higher 65% as they get ready to hatch, some even crank it up to 75% but I think that is overkill to me. Lower humidity will cause the egg to be dry, and high humidity will smother the eggs poor's in moisture making it hard for the chick to breath inside the shell before it pips.

On the inside of a egg shells wall there is a thin wet membrane, if it dries it turns in to a thin latex like material and that is bad as the chick is not strong enough to peck thru that. It can also shrink wrap/cocoon a chick inside the egg and it will suffocate.

I keep mine at 50-53% all through the incubation and hatch cycle, as they hatch they are wet and it will add to this bringing the humidity up.

A hobby shop will have a special type super glue that can glue Styrofoam, regular super glue will melt Styrofoam. Glue the cut out back in or tape it up is my thought.

I also mentioned earlier running the incubator at full tilt ( my mistake sorry) but you want to set it to the temp specified for your eggs, usually around 100 degrees F. Do that for 24 hours or until you get a stabilized temp and humidity for a 24 hour period. It will vary some, maybe +-1 degree and humidity will vary more as the fresh air takes it away.

 

[dimi]

I am incubating coturnix. I've read throughout forums that 35% for day 1-15 and 70-75% for the lockdown. I found this study via forums as well here that back up that data from scientific aspect. http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd21/3/roma21038.htm