Humidity level during incubation-poll

[DroolBubbles]

I want to take a poll here. This was sparked by another thread but I wanted this to be it's own entity. Please everyone answer so I/we/other newbs can get a good idea of whats working.

What humidity ranges are you (have you) using for days 1-18 and 19-21?

What kind of results have you gotten using these ranges?

 

[A.T. Hagan]

In my air-conditioned Florida house I prefer to keep my day 1-18 humidity between 45-50% and my final three day humidity between 60-65%. I typically get better than 90% hatch with chicken eggs produced by my birds and better than 85% with turkeys.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Thanks for starting this thread, it'll be interesting to see the results.

And thanks to ATHagan for including location and house temp/condition in your answer! The geographical area you are from probably plays a huge part in what humidity levels have the most success and is probably why there is such a wide range of humidity levels that result in successful hatches.

I've been running 35-45% humidity so far on my first hatch (I started at 50% but after more reading got nervous that that humidity may be too high so let the incubator "dry down" a bit). Out of 19 eggs that actually started developing, I've only had to toss one. Tomorrow is day 18 for us, and I plan on increasing humidity to about 60%. I live in central IL and the temps have been a bit crazy here. The first few days of incubation I've had to turn the air on to keep house temps under 80, but this past week or so I've had to turn the heat on to keep the house temp above 73. I believe the humidity in my house, or at least the room the incubator is in, is running around 30-35% because I stop loosing humidity when I open the incubator once it gets down to about 35% humidity. I'll be sure to check back in next week and let you know how my hatch went.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

40% to day 18; let dry this last hatch to 20% day and half after candling day 10 seeing smaller air cells then back to 40%. Started lock down at 60% as they are piping and humidity got up in house from catching up on laundry it's climbed to 72% this 20th day.

 

[rgvchicks]

i start mine between 30%-35% the first 18 days i then bring up the humidity to 65%-70% i've had pretty good hatches first back on feb 20 got a perfect hatch....the other two were a good 90% hatch rate

 

[kathyinmo]

30% (goal of 35% the highest, 25% the lowest) the first 18 days.
60% (no higher than 65%) days 18-21.