How do I manage incubator humidity when adding eggs daily?

[EllieTillmans]

I scanned through some of the posts (new here ) and didn't see anything relating to this, so any help would be appreciated.

I have started incubating my first Quail eggs, and in looking at the incubation cycle, I'm wondering how I am to raise the humidity from 55% to 80% in the last three days without affecting the other eggs that I am adding in daily. Do I need to make another incubator specifically for the last three days or is there another way?

Thanks in advance!

Ellie

 

[EllieTillmans]

Wow. I have checked this forum regularly hoping that I could get a response. I am not that familiar with forums, perhaps I am posting in the wrong place.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[sarahswank]

Ideally you dont add in new eggs daily. You want to start a group of eggs at a time. You can save eggs over a course of a week and start them all at once. Not sure how you should procede at this point if you already have several days worth, hopefully someone with more incubating experiance will chime in.

 

[LTygress]

I don't incubate quail eggs, I only deal with chicken eggs (and maybe geese this coming Spring). But I USUALLY do a constant add/rotation with my eggs. Only the last few times have I added eggs all at once, and then waited for them to hatch all at once. My flock is still fairly small, and they say you *should* only keep eggs for 10 days before putting them in the incubator or fridge. If I did that, I would waste incubator space!

But what I've realized is that the humidity is just fine at about 50% the entire time, even during hatch. I've never raised my humidity for hatch. Ever. And the very first batch I did like that was a 100% hatch rate!

Right now I've got eggs in my incubator ranging from a hatch date of September 27th (tomorrow) to October 17th (three weeks from today). This is how it usually is for me, and still no problems.

I've actually never gotten the entire idea of raising humidity and lowering temperature anyway. It's not like the hen can really lower her own body temperature and sweat heavier when she's sitting on them! But I use a little giant, and I keep water in the trays, I keep the temp at a constant 102, and I write dates on all of the eggs so I know who is due when.

But even better, I found out in the last two hatches (when I "rescued" eggs from a broody hen that hatched a bunch and then abandoned the rest) that apparently you don't even NEED to take them out of the egg turner! Actually, after that first mistake with one, I realized that hatch rates seem BETTER when they are left in the egg turner! I've had better hatch rates by just leaving everything alone, than I have by trying to adjust everything and keep it perfect.

So don't worry about it. Just keep the humidity around 50%, keep the temp between 99 and 102, and let them do their thing!