How does a DRY HATCH work?

[little-beep]

why do people do a dry hatch and what is the purpose of having no humidity until the end of the incubation period?

 

[Nabiki]

My first two hatches, I used the 50% humidity that I'd read was ideal. I had a lot of curled toes and hatching issues. When I changed the humidity down to 30% per advice of people here, I had much better hatch rates, and no curled toe issues. It seems that coturnix eggs hatch better at lower humidity. Button quail do better at the 50% range.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Im just simply to lazy to add water the entire time so thats why I dry hatch

 

[WonkierZulu]

A dry hatch is when you don't add any water to your incubator the first 17-18 days. Then on lockdown you up your humidity 60 to 70 percent if I remember correctly. Also I believe you don't want your humidity to drop below 25 percent.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

why do people do a dry hatch and what is the purpose of having no humidity until the end of the incubation period?

It's my understanding that dry hatching doesn't mean that there is no humidity in your incubator, it just means you're not adding water to bring that humidity to the level you want it.
How much water you need to add to your incubator is going to depend on the humidity where you live. If the humidity is high already where your incubating you may not need to add water until hatch time. Where I am in Missouri the humidity can vary from day to day some days I need to add a little water some days I don't.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

It's basically just a way to increase aircell size by not adding more humidity to the incubator and letting just the house humidity be present before adding the wanted amount of humidity at lockdown

 

[little-beep]

It's basically just a way to increase aircell size by not adding more humidity to the incubator and letting just the house humidity be present before adding the wanted amount of humidity at lockdown

Thank you -- that's the sort of info I was looking for, but specifically I'm wondering 'why' someone would even do a dry hatch?

 

[little-beep]

It's my understanding that dry hatching doesn't mean that there is no humidity in your incubator, it just means you're not adding water to bring that humidity to the level you want it.
How much water you need to add to your incubator is going to depend on the humidity where you live. If the humidity is high already where your incubating you may not need to add water until hatch time. Where I am in Missouri the humidity can vary from day to day some days I need to add a little water some days I don't.

excellent thank you. I'm in Canada - it's cold and snowy here currently with low humidity. No dry hatch for me then... thanks a lot for the info!

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Thank you -- that's the sort of info I was looking for, but specifically I'm wondering 'why' someone would even do a dry hatch?

The 'why' is because if you have enough humidity in the air already by adding water to your incubator you might be making the humidity too high in your incubator and the eggs may not lose enough moisture to grow the air cells properly.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Thank you -- that's the sort of info I was looking for, but specifically I'm wondering 'why' someone would even do a dry hatch?

Some people find it easier and some claim it helps with incubator health issues