How do you regulate humidity?

[WickedChicksNH]

I have one of the Styrofoam incubators, no auto turner or anything fancy, I have had great luck hatching with it.
I fill the reservoir, from there I keep an eye on the humidity level, some days I have to add some little bowls of water, other days I have to remove some. The most I have had in there is 4 bowls. they are small bowls and i have room in my incubator to add and take them or take them away.

The other day the humidity went down a little lower than I wanted and it was lock down. I put a small blanket around the incubator and that brought it right up where i wanted it.

Good luck

 

[igorsMistress]

Thanks to you both for the info. I'll try them and see how things go

 

[igorsMistress]

I put a strip of paper towel in the incubator yesterday and added the usual T of water. When I got up this morning there was a 2% increase in the normal morning humidity reading. I filled a bit more of the channel with more paper towel and added the usual amount of water. An hour later the humidity hadn't had the usual spike so hopefully the towels will maintain a more even amount of moisture for a longer period of time. Will monitor today.

 

[igorsMistress]

I averaged the humidity over the last 10 days in the incubator. It's averaged 35% so I candled eggs today. Here's a pic of where the air cells are, day 12 ends tonight. I think they're a little big. Second opinions? Thoughts on how high to increase it to?

 

[igorsMistress]

@007Sean
Will you please look at the pics of my eggs there and tell me what you think? Are the air cells too big? I'm sorry to bother you, I really don't want to screw this up.

 

[WVduckchick]

They do look a little on the large side to me, and with quail being so small anyway, i would personally be inclined to bump it up a few percentage points. Maybe add a small wet sponge for a few days. Gradual increases are better than drastic ones.

But now I’m remembering that you only have a few more days to go! I think mine hatched on day 16-17?? What day were you planning to lockdown?

 

[igorsMistress]

Thanks for your confirmation @WVduckchick I feel better now

Tomorrow night completes day 14 so I was going to start lockdown then. I added more paper towels to the channels yesterday when I candled and didn't bring humidity up too much last night. I'm going to work on gradual increases today and tomorrow, glad I didn't go overboard.

 

[WVduckchick]

So you are about ready for lockdown!! Good luck!! Please post a hatch update!!

 

[igorsMistress]

Yes'm I sure will! I'm so excited, I could see wiggling when I candled them.

 

[007Sean]

I averaged the humidity over the last 10 days in the incubator. It's averaged 35% so I candled eggs today. Here's a pic of where the air cells are, day 12 ends tonight. I think they're a little big. Second opinions? Thoughts on how high to increase it to?

View attachment 1532418 View attachment 1532419

They look about right to me, 1 or 2 are a bit large but I really don't see a problem.