How low is too low on dry hatch?

[Susan Skylark]

Haven’t tried it yet but am interested in trying a dry hatch with coturnix quail, but is there a humidity that is too low? My current incubator tend to run in the twenties with no water and in the eighties if using the water bottle attachment. I’ve kept a decent average by adding a few mls of water a couple times daily. It would be handy not to add the water but I’m afraid humidity would be too low.
Thanks!

 

[Nabiki]

In my experience, about 30% is ideal during incubation.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Interesting, would 22-25 percent be too low? I’d love to do a test hatch and see what happens except I’d rather not intentionally cause a disaster at hatch, those little guys are so cute!

 

[Susan Skylark]

And what would you do for lockdown?

 

[Nabiki]

I have not tried that low, so I can't say for sure. I do know that since I've moved to over 4000' I've needed to increase humidity to about 40% for best hatches.

For lockdown when I was at sea level, I raised humidity to 50-60%. At higher humidity I ended up with a lot of curled toes. At higher elevation, however, I need to up humidity to 60-70% for best results. I had no idea that elevation made such a difference, but my first few hatches up here were awful.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Good to know! I’m at 3000 feet and thought my thermometer was five degrees off because it says water boils at 207F, but apparently that is the boiling point at 3000 feet! Who knew? I probably won’t risk going that low then, maybe if I was at sea level but we’ve been having great hatches at our current settings so best not to change it.

 

[007Sean]

I have not tried that low, so I can't say for sure. I do know that since I've moved to over 4000' I've needed to increase humidity to about 40% for best hatches.

For lockdown when I was at sea level, I raised humidity to 50-60%. At higher humidity I ended up with a lot of curled toes. At higher elevation, however, I need to up humidity to 60-70% for best results. I had no idea that elevation made such a difference, but my first few hatches up here were awful.

It's not so much the elevation as it's the barometric pressure. Higher pressure=lower humidity, lower pressure = higher humidity.
Personally, I don't go below 30% or higher than 60%.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Then you throw in a climate controlled house and the little bubble of an incubator (a tiny bit of water quickly ups the humidity) and it really gets interesting! I used to live in a state where the winter temps and humidity were always zero, then I moved a state over and while we still get cold temps the humidity is still 64 percent in the winter making it feel much colder, and this is at below freezing temps in a semi arid climate with infrequent snow? It’s not the cold it’s the humidity! Weird, thanks for the discussion very interesting!

 

[Huntmaster]

I’ve kept a decent average by adding a few mls of water a couple times daily. It would be handy not to add the water but I’m afraid humidity would be too low.

Humidity is raised by the surface area of the water in incubator not the amount of water. If you have room in incubator for some type of shot glass or something like that that holds a good amount of water but not much surface area. Deeper the better as you will not have to add water as often and able to hold humidity much more consistent. I suggest A little experimenting on how much surface area of water needed for desired humidity and then go from there. Hope this helps.

 

[Susan Skylark]

I don’t have room in my incubator, it is tiny, 20 oz bottle caps worked the best but it was putzy at best.

I also wanted to add to this discussion that the macro-climate (outside weather) and the micro-climate (inside the incubator) are two very different things, and while barometric pressure and natural humidity are well beyond my control, I would also argue that they really have little actual influence inside my climate controlled house in which my climate controlled incubator sits (theorizing here, anybody need a PhD project?). Even though it is 85F and 65 percent humidity outside, my climate controls on the house change that and then my settings on the bubble incubator change them again in miniature, no matter what the barometric pressure happens to be, I might have to adjust various settings to compensate but that is just part of the process!