Dgrif5
Chirping
- Jul 27, 2018
- 72
- 94
- 81
It's been two days now since I set my shipped duck eggs, and trying to manage the humidity has been a nightmare from start to finish, and I'm worried I've damaged the incubating eggs in some way! The first doom flag was that one of my two hygrometers stopped working half way through the first day, so until today I've had to guess the humidity in the second incubator by roughly adding the same amount of water as the first. The second doom flag was when I noticed oddities in the second hygrometer, displaying values that seemed clearly wrong. This hygrometer had served me well in the past, but it seems to have malfunctioned slightly between now and then....
I immediately ordered two new hygrometers that arrived today, and they seem to be working alright (first question: if both hygrometers (different brands/type) show the same result to within a few %, can I trust them to be reliable? or do I need to salt test one of them anyway? i'd rather not deprive an incubator of a hygrometer for half a day or so, but I will if necessary.)
Besides the issues with unreliable hygrometers, I've been having an even bigger issue just trying to keep the humidity stable! We're incubating duck eggs, which I've heard need a slightly higher humidity, so I initially placed a small dish in the base of the one incubator to fill with water. This shot the humidity up to near 70%, so I had to scrap that idea! Since then, I've just been adding 5-10ml of water into the incubators every so often, but it seems to fluctuate so rapidly! yesterday even adding a tiny amount seemed to spike the humidity right up, but today I can't seem to get it much higher than 25% no matter how much goes in! i'm at my wits end at the moment, expecially as it dropped to around 25% by the time I woke up this morning! I'm not sure what I can do to keep it stable at this point, and i'm worried that the many humidity fluctuations over the last few days have damaged the eggs' chances... Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Apologies for the semi cry for help/ semi rant, but it's been stressing me like mad the last few days, and with duck eggs having an extra long incubation, I feel it's going to kill me by the end of it!!
I immediately ordered two new hygrometers that arrived today, and they seem to be working alright (first question: if both hygrometers (different brands/type) show the same result to within a few %, can I trust them to be reliable? or do I need to salt test one of them anyway? i'd rather not deprive an incubator of a hygrometer for half a day or so, but I will if necessary.)
Besides the issues with unreliable hygrometers, I've been having an even bigger issue just trying to keep the humidity stable! We're incubating duck eggs, which I've heard need a slightly higher humidity, so I initially placed a small dish in the base of the one incubator to fill with water. This shot the humidity up to near 70%, so I had to scrap that idea! Since then, I've just been adding 5-10ml of water into the incubators every so often, but it seems to fluctuate so rapidly! yesterday even adding a tiny amount seemed to spike the humidity right up, but today I can't seem to get it much higher than 25% no matter how much goes in! i'm at my wits end at the moment, expecially as it dropped to around 25% by the time I woke up this morning! I'm not sure what I can do to keep it stable at this point, and i'm worried that the many humidity fluctuations over the last few days have damaged the eggs' chances... Any tips would be greatly appreciated!
Apologies for the semi cry for help/ semi rant, but it's been stressing me like mad the last few days, and with duck eggs having an extra long incubation, I feel it's going to kill me by the end of it!!
