Humidity Experts---Help

[Phantom_Rooster]

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Yes, google is an awesome resource. BYC has the largest resource of chicken info that I have seen. There's is so much here.

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Yes, I am aware of this. My bator has 2 water channels. I am adding water to the smaller of the two for now.

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Yes, I did the salt test. I used a 1 gallon freezer bag and about 1/2 cup of salt(wet). I placed both my analog and digital meters in with it. After 8 hours, both were at about 68%. So, I would assume that I am 7% low. I think it is unusual that both were off the same. I've been assuming that the test results were wrong. If it was correct, I have been running at 62% and now I am at 32% dry. I am planning to get a wet/dry hygrometer. I understand that they are very accurate and fairly cheap.

I just added the water and looked at them again. All 8 are still moving. The air cells look a little better, except for one. I think the shell on this one is more dense. Time will tell. I am not stressing. This is fun.

Thank you all for your advise.

 

[Melissa Rose]

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Do you keep turning until the pip or do you still stop turning on day 18 just not locking down and raising the humidity? I'm not sure that makes sense

On Day 18 do you stop turning. Then when you see a pip you raise your humidity then lock down?

 

[Melissa Rose]

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I was expecting eggs this week and when they did not come I contacted the post office and was told "The tracking #'s are computer generated and really don't mean anything"

 

[Gypsy07]

There would be no point in including humidity figures in any incubator instructions as ideal humidity varies a lot and depends on a number of different factors. Even with the exact same model of bator, what works for one person won't necessarily work for another, and what works for you with one set of eggs might not work quite as well for you with the next set you incubate.

There really isn't a 'set-and-forget' humidity level the same way there is with temperature. Even once you've figured out roughly what works for you in your bator, you still have to candle (or weigh) and check that your eggs are on target for the correct amount of moisture loss come lockdown. You are entirely correct that the point of finding the correct humidity is to have the right amount of air in the aircell come lockdown.

If you have no earlier incubating results to compare with, a good starting figure for newbie chicken hatchers is 30-45% humidity the first 18 days. I'm not saying that will definitely work, just that it's a good place to start. Some people have good results with as low as 20% or as high as 60%, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule.

If you have been running at 62% humidity up till now, and you think your air cells are too small, you're probably right! I'd say 62% would most likely be too high, whether or not I'd had a chance to look at air cells. If you're on day 13 then you only have 5 days to get their moisture loss speeded up, so I imagine you're probably going to be looking at running them dry for the next five days to get them back on track. You may even want to delay lockdown till day 19 to give them an extra day to lose moisture.

Humidity is quite easy to play around with to get right. It's not like temperature, where you have to be pretty steady the whole way through. Like, if your temp drops to 50F for a few days then climbs to 120F for another few days, all your embryos would be dead. But with humidity, if (for example) 40% was what you were aiming for, but then you found out it had been at 60% for the first week, you could either drop it to 20% for the second week before raising back up to 40% for the last few days, or you could drop it to about 30% and leave it there right up to day 18. Obviously a steady humidity the whole way through would be more ideal, but it's not as important as a steady temperature. What is much more important is that the eggs have lost the correct amount of moisture by the time you reach lockdown.

If I were you I'd take out all the water and run your eggs dry. Candle again on day 16 and see how they look. Unless they've miraculously caught up to where they should be, I would leave the water out and candle again on day 18. If they look like they still need to lose a bit more moisture, I would stop turning them, but not raise the humidity for another day. I recently did this with some eggs that hadn't lost enough weight (moisture) by day 18. I stopped turning them but didn't raise the humidity till very late on in day 19. By the time I raised the humidity one of them had actually pipped without me noticing it, but it went on to hatch fine, as did the other three whose moisture loss I'd been worried about...

 

[Barbedwirecat]

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I turn until I see the air cell has lost enough weight. I stopped turning on day 19, when I saw the dip down in the air cell. As pete55 explains once you see this, there is no need for turning. I did put them in egg cartons big end up though, like they were in the turner.

 

[dwegg]

I wish I knew this last week...I had 15 silkie eggs and only 6 hatched...the other eggs did not loose enough water...but i did not know about loosing 16% of weight for lockdown ect...

do you guys weigh the eggs? or do you just look at the air cell? candling is hard for someone inexperienced like me (I think) as I don't really know what to look for even after reading posts and seeing pics...

if you weigh them do you take each egg out and weigh it? how many times should you weight them during the 18 days?

thanks for all this info....I was sad about my silkies and this was my 4th hatch...my other three hatches I have had almost 100% hatch rate with shipped eggs...but this hatch I put them in egg cartons to hatch....I feel this was the prob. as well with the extra water in the eggs ect???

 

[Gypsy07]

Melissa Rose: Normally you would stop turning and raise humidity at the same time, on day 18, and you'd be expecting to see your first pip on maybe day 20 or 21. I think this is how most people would normally do it anyway. Pete's advice on his excellent post, and what I said to the OP about not raising humidity straight away when stopping turning the eggs, well, that's just a bit of a trick you can do when you know your eggs haven't lost enough moisture and you'd like them to lose just a little bit more to give them a better chance of hatching. You'd only really want to do it that way if you knew your eggs still had a bit of moisture to lose, not for any other reason. If you were confident your eggs hade lost enough moisture, you'd just go ahead and lock them down, meaning to both stop turning and to raise the humidity at the same time, on day 18 as normal. Hope that helps you a bit...

Dwegg: Yes, I weigh my eggs, mostly cause I'm not very good at judging moisture loss by candling, but also cause getting to make a little chart and then write the figures in it for each egg really appeals to my sense of record keeping and note-taking. Some people are good enough at judging it by candling that they don't need to weigh though.

The way I do it is to weigh each egg at the start, and scribble the starting weight on each shell. Then I weigh again (each egg individually) on days 6, 12 and again on day 18 right before lockdown. I usually incubate no more than 20 eggs at a time though. For people incubating loads in a cabinet style incubator, I think they do it by weighing the whole tray and calculating average weight loss, as individually weighing hundreds of eggs just isn't really feasible.

I hatch in egg cartons, and love it, so I don't think that would have been what spoiled your hatch. The excess fluid in the egg is almost definitely the culprit!

Oh, and the 16% weight loss stated on Pete's excellent thread is for waterfowl, not chickens! Different breeds have different weight loss requirements. For chickens it's approximately 13%. Please feel free to PM me if you'd like more information or advice about weighing. I swear by it now. It takes a lot of the worry out of incubating, which is always a good thing! Have a look on brinsea's website to download their free incubating guide. They've got some igood nfo about humidity rates and calculating moisture loss on there...

 

[Melissa Rose]

Thank You Gypsy

I was raising the humidity and I stopped turning on day 18 but with this last batch I think my eggs were to wet. I think on my silkie eggs I have going now - which by the way are Dweggs fault

- you just had to post those cute fuzzy pics didn't you

- I am going to weigh them and then adjust as needed at the end. I have trouble candling due to poor eyesight but the weighing should work. Happy Day and Happy Hatching All

 

[dwegg]

wow that is awesome thanks...thanks for letting me know about the 13% (not 16%) weight loss thing...great info.....

 

[mstricer]

Quote:
Yes, google is an awesome resource. BYC has the largest resource of chicken info that I have seen. There's is so much here.

Quote:
Yes, I am aware of this. My bator has 2 water channels. I am adding water to the smaller of the two for now.

Quote:
Yes, I did the salt test. I used a 1 gallon freezer bag and about 1/2 cup of salt(wet). I placed both my analog and digital meters in with it. After 8 hours, both were at about 68%. So, I would assume that I am 7% low. I think it is unusual that both were off the same. I've been assuming that the test results were wrong. If it was correct, I have been running at 62% and now I am at 32% dry. I am planning to get a wet/dry hygrometer. I understand that they are very accurate and fairly cheap.

I just added the water and looked at them again. All 8 are still moving. The air cells look a little better, except for one. I think the shell on this one is more dense. Time will tell. I am not stressing. This is fun.

Thank you all for your advise.

You should calibrate for at least 12 hours. 24 hours is better, they may not be off at all.
Michele