Homemade Egg-o-Meter Works!

[chickygirl2]

Is there a link to the Egg-o-Meter thermometer?

 

[redhen]

Nice! Thanks for the idea!

 

[speckledhen]

Here's one on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330341428103

 

[WalkingWolf]

Quote:
It depends on the type of thermometer, I found the cheap LG therms to run 2F cooler than a medical therm. But they are intended to lay on top of the egg in a still air and the temp should be 2F warmer on the top of the egg. But the booklet says the temp should read 99.5. So it appears that they are intentionally set 2F hotter. Mercury therms are accurate but they usually require adjusting up and down if they are not glued into place.

I have a Accurite that I did the very same thing with a probe but I used sand for the filler. I stopped using not because it did not work, just because the LG cheapie works fine once I calibrated it, and I get 100% hatches, or very very close. I found the less I fiddle with mother nature the better the hatches get. I don't even measure for humidity anymore. I just make sure there is water in one pint sand container with a sponge while incubating and water in three for the countdown.

 

[Grillo]

I once did an experiment where I drilled a hole in the air sack of one of my hen's eggs and inserted one of my twin thermomethers, to make it a long story short, the internat temperature of the eggs will in the end be the same as the air temperature of the incubator. It took the egg a complete two hours to reach air temperature going from 90 to 99.5. This was done in a cabinet incubator that holds the temperature extremely well. So as somebody else already said. If you can keep the air temp constant then the egg will match it. Egg height temperature does sound like something you should consider when incubating in a hovabator type incubator. Good luck.

 

[Fluffy-Butt-Farms]

Quote:
i found the same thing with my LG therm. it runs 2 degrees cooler then both the walmart therm and the hova therm. nice to know i'm not crazy.

getting a spot check. tired of having 3 different therms with 3 different temps

 

[jenjscott]

The time when these egg o meters and water wigglers really are an advantage is when you have a spike or drop in temperature. You will have some idea what the effect was on the egg itself. The temp can drop to 75 for a while and the egg o meter will show how cold the egg actually got. The same with temperature spikes.

 

[speckledhen]

As stated, it's just a tool, a good lesson to use one once, at least, so you realize how much the air temp can vary up and down, and the egg temp won't fluctuate like that. I just wanted to do something with my AcuRite since I didn't plan to use it anymore for incubating and it was a fun experiment anyway.

 

[chickygirl2]

Does anyone know aht is inside the official egg-o-meter?

 

[silkiechicken]

Wet bulb/dry bulb temp is actually not that bad. It is the method I use, just need to find a psychrometric chart that goes up to 100F. I don't actually have a chart any more, but usually just keep air temp between 99-100 and figure the wet bulb should be around 85F.

About those papers on internal egg temps and so on, there are so many articles about it in the poultry science journal. Read an article which modeled internal temp and from what I remember, it was about .5 or so deg cooler than air temp due to evaporative cooling.

Little projects are always fun, so if you got the time (or don't) it's still great to keep the mind alive!