Humidity level in the RCom Suro?

[Brickman House]

Hi all,

I'm getting ready to set some duck eggs in my new RCom King Suro. I understand duck eggs should be set at 55% humidity for days 1-25, and 65% for the last three days.

I've had the incubator set up for the last day, and it's barely hitting 55%-- usually 53 or 54%. I've double checked to make sure the drip tube is set to drip on the pad, adjusted the speed screw on the pump unit as high as it will go, and still have barely hit 55%.

I imagine I'll be fine where it is for the first part of the hatch, but I'm worried about how I'll raise the humidity for the last three days, if I can't get it past 53 or 54% now.

Does anyone with a Suro have any ideas for me? I tried the website, but the videos crash my browser, so no help there, unfortunately.

Thanks in advance!

 

[wohic]

i find popping the jamjar of water higher than the bator helps, as does having shorter amount of tubing.......... also check for air bubbles in the tube

 

[bel]

Until its figured out I would just hold down the "+" for a while to button to start up the humidity pump manually whenever you see it dipping.

 

[Brickman House]

Thanks to both of you! I know this incubator's a little new on the scene, so it's great to have advice from people who are familiar with it.

I've double checked to be sure there are no air bubbles in the tubing, and raised the water bottle in case either of those are issues-- thanks, Wohic! I hesitate to shorten the tubing because that limits where I can put the pump and bottle, and unfortunately I can't guarantee the incubator will always be set up in the same place. If push comes to shove, though, it's a great suggestion for an option.

Bel, on your advice I bumped up the humidity manually with the (+) button, and that definitely did work. I can certainly keep doing that if I have to, but it'd be nice to figure out what's going on, in order to make it more automatic.

A couple thoughts I had:

1/ Did either of you wet the sponge pad at all before you hung it in the incubator? I didn't, and I'm wondering if that was my mistake?

2/ Where are you setting the vent hole on top of the incubator at the different stages of the incubation? I've tried completely open and completely closed, and it doesn't seem to make a difference, but it'd be nice to know where you guys set it, so I can compare notes.

Thanks much for your help!

 

[bel]

I didn't moisten the sponge, its pretty humid here due to rains. When I decided to up humidity (due to changing settings, not a drop) I just pressed the button to kick it up fter changing the setting to what I wanted (probably not really needed).

I'm new to this but my guess is it might not hurt to add water slowly to the sponge with a dropper, it might get more open so it holds more water and there is more pores and surface area exposed to put out humidity better, just dont add too much at once so the humidity stays in the levels you want.

I'm not sure on the hole, in the instructions it just says to open 1/3 at hatching, I have it open a crack, but its not made any differences open or closed.

Its a nice unit but would definately benefit from a good manual.

 

[Brickman House]

Thanks, Bel!

I messed with the incubator a bit more last night, and I think I found the solution. The pump was runing almost constantly, the sponge was damp all the way through, but I still wasn't hitting 55% consistently.

I decided to try the one and only thing that I hadn't messed with, and changed out the sponge for the bigger one. That did the trick! Humidity shot up initially, but had settled down to a steady 55% by this morning, where it's been ever since.

The directions say the smaller sponge is good for 45-55% humidity, but it just wasn't cutting it for the upper end of that range, obviously.

So eggs go in tomorrow-- we'll see how it goes!

 

[bel]

awesome, glad you were able to make it work, I will have to remember that when we get to day 18.