humidity control

[swamperkk]

my humidity stays around 58% to 62% when starting my incubator,i know its must be at 70 to 80% days before hatching,is it safe to have a humidity high when putting the eggs in the incubator? if u wanted to get my humidity down to 45 or 50%,what must i do?

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

When you're incubating eggs, they should loose about 11-13% of their total mass the first 18 days. You can weigh the eggs or look at air cell development to see if they're on track. 58-62% is too high, and my eggs don't hatch well even at 50% humidity. I run mine somewhere around 25-35% the first 18 days and bump it up to around 60-65% at lockdown (referred to as dry hatching). I just keep an eye on the air cells and add or remove water as necessary (you can Google air cell development and look at pics to get an idea of where they should be at which days). I get really great hatch rates doing it this way. If I'm struggling with high humidity, I place a couple of paper towels inside to absorb excess moisture. But, if our humidity is high here, I usually just run it completely dry and all is well.

Good luck

 

[swamperkk]

ok thanks,i have a old 1953 sears and roebuck super hatcher incubator,so far so good eveythings works just have to control my humidity