Humidity in homemade incubator

[dreamer5577]

Ok so just for the heck of it, I decided to try a homemade incubator. Its going really well. Temp is perfect and I have evrything ready to go except...I have so much water (sponges and trays of water) but I CANNOT get the humidity past 40%! I have no idea what is going on! What if I took a spray bottle and sprayed it all around on the inside? Would that be a bad idea? I'm assuming so because I've never heard of anyone doing it before. Just wondering. Thanks

 

[HEChicken]

Without a little more info its hard to know what's going on. Keep in mind that it is surface area, not depth, that increases humidity. So a deep bowl that is 3" across will not produce as much moisture in the air as the same amount of water in a 6" bowl. So the first thing to look at to increase humidity is your surface area - is there a way to increase it?

The second thing to try is something like a sanitary napkin or baby diaper, that is designed to hold a lot of moisture. Soak it thoroughly and place it in the incubator and a lot of people have had success with raising their humidity that way.

 

[tec27]

Depends what kind of homemade incubator you built. Is it styrofoam or cardboard? For me, cardboard didn't hold humidity well at all. So i had to add two sponges and actually just "accidentally" spill water on the bottom of the bator to drench the cardboard. This brought my humidity up to 60-70%. If you have a styrofoam incubator then you should check your hygrometer. I have a homemade styrofoam incubator right now and I'm doing a "dry" hatch. But even with this dry hatch, the humidity is at 40%. This is with no water added. Styrofoam holds humidity very well i found out.

Like what the above poster said, you need to add surface area. You said you added sponges and what not, but try adding pads, or like i said dampening the bottom and sides of the bator. All of this will temporarily raise your humidity.

 

[dreamer5577]

I took out some of the trays and put in washcloths. It worked like a charm.

ANOTHER Question though. The humidity is supposed to be 50-60% for the first 18 days right? How vital is the humidity? will too much harm them? Like if it were to go to 65-70% on accident?

 

[julio]

im also having problems raising it to 60%,but ill try adding more water containers,i have space to add more,its a styrofoam cooler..

 

[tec27]

I took out some of the trays and put in washcloths. It worked like a charm.

ANOTHER Question though. The humidity is supposed to be 50-60% for the first 18 days right? How vital is the humidity? will too much harm them? Like if it were to go to 65-70% on accident?

Not really. For the first 18 days, you can actually do a dry hatch. Many people on here swear by it and i tried it for the first time a couple months ago. It worked very well. Typically for the first 18 days you want your humidity from 40-50%. It can be even lower. Humidity however, is vital during lockdown. It should be between 50-70% during lockdown. Yes too much or too little humidity can drown or dry out your chicks. Especially too much humidity during the first 18 days.

 

[tec27]

Add sponges or paper towels or something like that. I have found out that containers of water do not work well. i don't know if its because of the depth of water in it or something else. You want to increase surface area and this is better achieved with paper towels, pads, sponges etc. If you had all this and the humidity doesn't go up then check your hygrometer. All of this is more than sufficient to raise the humidity.

 

[whytedragon]

What I do..is I have a funnel with a clear tube, and I add HOT water to the bottom of the incubator (lined with rags) when I notice pipping. I check humidity a few times a day and if I notice it's gone below 60% I add a bit more hot water. I keep my humidity at 70% this way and it hasn't failed me.

 

[jonaid]

The humidity of my incubator is 57% in lower part and 45 in the upper part of the incubator. Is it ok to continue it this way for the first 18 days?? And after 18 days how much humidity should i maintain in the incubator?? Please let me know as i just build an home made incubator with marine wood and white wood. Thx

 

[jonaid]

More then once the temp of my incubator went below 37 to 30 is it still ok to continue hatching or should i change with new eggs? And is there any special ways to hatch Texas chickens??