Humidity help

[Shandi85]

This is my first time incubating eggs. The incubator came with the humidity pre set to 60 but everything I have read says that is too high. What should it be? Please help

 

[paneubert]

Define "pre set". What incubator are you using? One that automatically adjusts humidity for you?

 

[Shandi85]

Define "pre set". What incubator are you using? One that automatically adjusts humidity for you?

It is one I got off EBay. The booklet says it's pre set to 60 but even without putting water in it it is over 60 and I haven't figured out how to lower it yet. I just need suggestions on what to set the humidity on. Thank you

 

[paneubert]

Well first, is this reading based on a built in hygrometer? Because there is a high chance it is not reading accurate. You need to calibrate it so you know how "off" the reading is. Here is a good tutorial about how to do that. They use a bottlecap, but you could scale this up or down to whatever size container you want.

https://www.neptunecigar.com/tips/how-to-calibrate-your-hygrometer

It is also advisable to have a second hygrometer and second thermometer so you can double check that the readings are close to each other.

Second, if it truly is 60% when running dry, you can try to lower it by placing rice in there. It will not lower it a lot, but it might help a little. Another method is to increase the airflow a lot. This will make the heater work harder to keep the temp up, but it will lower the humidity (unless you have 60% humidity in your house).

 

[chickens really]

Add water and wait 12 hours to see where it goes before adding eggs....