Humidity in Bator...EXCELLENT INFO HERE! EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS!

[domino7]

For the life of me I can't figure out why everyone should read this thread lol. Twentysome pages to be more confused than ever.

 

[Jamie821]

I live in the east and I still run my incubating room with a humidifier and keep the room at 50%. I average 35 never over 40 and dont add water till it has dropped to 25 for 2 hours. I have had people say that the dry air out west is why they run theirs higher but still dont really get it. If the humidity in your bator is 35 here it is 35 there. The only difference I can see is you would have to add water more often to keep it up there unless you incubated in a room like I do and keep the humidity at 50% with a humidifier in that room. I only have to add a couple tablespoons of water the first 18 days that way. In the winter I have to really make sure I keep my humidifier filled though. I am not telling anyone they are wrong and if it works for them I am happy just dont understand how the same humidity in the bator is different. I can tell you that 100% hatches happen quite often for me and never go below 90%. I have not lost a chick to drowning in years and the chicks hatch so clean. I know the hatcheries use the dry method and the only thing in higher elevations they do different is blow extra oxygen over the eggs. I use to use the higher humidity and was lucky to get 3 chicks out of 14 eggs and all developed and died at pipping so I went to my sister in law that works for tyson hatchery and now hatch the way they do and what a difference it made. All you can do is decide for yourself. Whatever you decide best of luck and hope your hatch goes great;

 

[Huny]

So the "Dry" Method, you are looking for 30-35% for days 1-17 and 55 (?) for 18-21? Or is it lower/higher than that/

 

[spookychick]

Running a humidifier to keep the RH outside the bator at about 50% throughout incubation and hatch made a huge difference for me. Someone recently pointed out to me that it's better oxygen saturation that increases the hatch rate. With higher external humidity you can open up all the vent holes and still maintain a decent humidity level withn the bator. So higher external RH allows for better oxygen level throughout the incubation period, and during the critical hatch time when the babies need all the oxygen they can get to fight their way out of those shells. This is how it was explained to me.

By the way, I use a Sportsman. Days 1 to 17 I keep the internal humidity around 45%, then increase to 60 to 70% for the hatch. I haven't experimented with a dryer internal humidity yet, but I'm thinking it wouldn't be a problem as long as the external RH is high enough that I can leave those vents open.

I'm relatively new to this hatching game, but reading everything I can to make for the best hatches possible. The oxygen issue, at least from my observations, seems to be something to consider.

 

[Jamie821]

Day one through 18 I have all my vents open and 50% room humidity and run my humidity from 37 to 35 but dont add water until it goes to 25 for at least a hour. On day 18 I raise humidity to not above 60 but at least 58. The best hatches are when I can keep the humidity the last 3 days at 59 to 60. Number one rule though once you put them in to hatch and up humidity do not open bator. You will dry out the membranes and chicks cant turn in egg to hatch.

 

[panner123]

Quote:
Reading is a way of learning. Confusion is a state of mind. If your want to have a better hatch rate and chicks that are not drowning at birth, you can follow this dry method. Useing this method, for the first days 1-18 keep the humidity below 45% and for the last 3 days raise the humidity to 60%. Provided your eggs are fertile useing this method you will have many more 100% hatches than you will have 80% or below hatches. There are afew of us that have learned over the years that this method works. Myself, I have only been hatching eggs since 1950 on my own, I helped my grandgather before that. During the 1960's, I hatched 5000 chicks per week or more. Many of those hatches were 100%'ers. Had I used a higher humidity method my hatch rate would have been much lower. How do I know this, well I tried both methods side by side. At best the higher humidity reached 80%, the dry method was NEVER below 80%. You do the math. If your your busisness is raising chickens, which method would you use.

 

[LilDucky85]

No its bookmarked in my AOL toolbar lol. I just meant this specific thread.

 

[CARS]

Quote:
What ever page you have open when you click to bookmark is the page that is saved.

If you go to the main index page of this forum and bookmark it, every time you open that bookmark the main index page will appear. If you go to the first page of this thread and save a new bookmark and call it humidity (or ?) when you open the humidity bookmark, this thread appears.

 

[Buster]

Quote:
Reading is a way of learning. Confusion is a state of mind. If your want to have a better hatch rate and chicks that are not drowning at birth, you can follow this dry method. Useing this method, for the first days 1-18 keep the humidity below 45% and for the last 3 days raise the humidity to 60%. Provided your eggs are fertile useing this method you will have many more 100% hatches than you will have 80% or below hatches. There are afew of us that have learned over the years that this method works. Myself, I have only been hatching eggs since 1950 on my own, I helped my grandgather before that. During the 1960's, I hatched 5000 chicks per week or more. Many of those hatches were 100%'ers. Had I used a higher humidity method my hatch rate would have been much lower. How do I know this, well I tried both methods side by side. At best the higher humidity reached 80%, the dry method was NEVER below 80%. You do the math. If your your busisness is raising chickens, which method would you use.

I would definitely use the method that worked best for my area and the other people hatching nearby, which, for me, was to use higher humidity. I've every hatch I've done and by far, I had better results using higher humidity. I wouldn't suggest it for everyone, but I'd definitely recommend it if you are at a higher elevation and other methods are failing for you. The best hatch rate I ever had using the "dry" method was 25%. I tried that method for 6 months. An old timer in my area who hatches and sells chicks for a business told me that there's no such thing as high humidity so I raised mine to 76% and started getting 80-100% hatches. I guess the moral of the story is that there really isn't a "right" answer, it's what works best for your locale. You have to try multiple things until you get it right. What works for some doesn't work for all.

 

[seminolewind]

I agree with Buster, it depends where you live. Since Buster lives at a high altitude, the air is thinner-less dense. Down here by sea level, the air is more dense. At Buster's altitude, to compensate for the less dense air, he does higher humidity, which makes the air denser . One of the hatcheries I've read about actually adds oxygen to their bators cause they are at a high altitude.
Apparently, there's air, humidity, and the atmospheric pressure to deal with. We can deal with air and humidity, but it seems to be trial and error for ways to compensate for different air pressures, usually by increasing or decreasing humidity cause there's not much else that we can toy with.
I really like the idea about the room humidity and a humidifier or dehumidifier. I think I'll do something with that next time.