How I managed to get my humidity high enough... finally!

marathonmultiplesmom

Songster
9 Years
Mar 23, 2010
543
5
129
Chehalis, WA
I kept trying everything... I had so many containers of water in the bater that I could barely fit any eggs and still couldn't get my humdity up.... I decided to mimic mother nature and made a little hay nest inside the bater (this is my hatcher I'm talking about btw) so I laid out a clean prefold cloth diaper on the bottom and set some hay in there in a circle, like a nest and sprayed it down with warm water. I was not able to get above 60% before and now it is consistantly 80-90%. Thought I'd share! I also like the hay nest because I can slightly tilt the air cell up. Looking forward to some geese now. I believe I lost the first one because of humidity probs. It internally pipped and then died.
 
Clean sponges! That's the way to get your humidity up. I have sponges that I only use for my incubators and I wash them after every incubation in the dishwasher.

Laurie
 
yeah, the sponges didn't work for me. I had several in there and it was still only topping out at 65%. I figured the hay was good enough for the goose then good enough for me. Its only in the hatcher and only a small amount so it will be really easy to clean out and replace between hatches. And, we've got lots of clean hay.
 
If it works then I wouldnt be too worried about the mess to clean up after... I would rather have the goslings hatch alive. I once had heaps of problems with humidity and filled every tray with water and put in a sponge. I got there in the end and ended up with rusty clips after two days because it was so high - but it was also the best hatch I ever had.
 
That was exactly my thought... I'd rather have them hatch alive!

I have one wiggling today so hopefully I will have a gosling within the next couple days.
I will shine a light over it tonight to see if I can see an internal pip. It was moving around last night but couldn't see any internal pip.
 
After a couple days the hay kind of starts to stink so I cleaned it out. I was able to keep my humidity up with prefold cloth diapers. Wow. They are great... Still waiting for hatchers... Got a goose in there on day 27
 
The diaper is what raised your humidity, not the hay. It was probably soaking up water from the wells underneath. I often use some paper towels with the ends stuck in one of the wells to increase the surface area of the water.
 
I did a little test today to see about raisiing my humidity. I took a pampers and soaked it.. put it in and my humidity went up to 85 really quickly.. I took it out because it was to much. Going to lockdown tonight so not sure what the humidity to shoot for on geese lockdown.. anyone???
 
Oh yeah, I guess a disposable diaper would work great, too. I have those in size premmie that my daughters use for baby dolls... maybe I will try that next time in my other bator... I am shooting for about 85% but just trying to get in the ballpark so if its 75-90%, I don't stress
wink.png
(for lockdown)
 
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