humidity to high

[horseshoenail]

This is my first time with Incubating eggs and my humidity has stayed around 60 and I have read 45 is the target. This is the fifth day and the sun is out so it should change .The incubator has a fan . do I have a problem

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Take out all the water and let it dry incubate for a few days. Incubators should not be near windows ans sun. Also what are you using for a hygrometer? They are rarely accurate but a salt test will tell you how far off it reads. Humidity numbers don't mean much if the unit is reading 10% high or low.

Salt test:

Quart zip seal bag (if small hygrometer sandwich size), milk cap or similar size cap, salt and bit of water.

Fill cap with salt.
Add drops of water until it is like wet sand not a slurry.
Put hygrometer and cap in the zip bag and seal with good amount of air inside.
Wait 6 hours and note your hygrometer reading the salt enviornment will be exactly 75%
Write on masking tap how much the calibration is (difference of your reading and 75%) and tape it to your incubator as a reminder.

I candle eggs on day 7 and again day 14 to check the air sac growth in fat end of egg. Monitoring this will let you know if your humidity is too high or too low. If the growth isn't close to diagram then let incubator go dry again for few days or more so it catches up. Likewise more humidity if the sac is getting too large. It barely grows at 60%. I personally go for 35% humidity for first 18 days. To achieve that in my enviornment only a double shot glass of water is needed sitting next to the turner. Humidity is effected by surface area of water, use larger or smaller containers to get to where you want to be.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Forgot the diagram:




Now this isn't meant to be exacting rather a good reference, the main thing is you don't want air sacs looking like day 7 on day 18. With a calibrated hygrometer I achieve the diagram with 35% humidity.

 

[horseshoenail]

Thanks for the info I do not have water in incubator but I have a different hydro meter thanks for the diagram . I will let you know how it goes

 

[BobMcDuff]

Take out all the water and let it dry incubate for a few days. Incubators should not be near windows ans sun. Also what are you using for a hygrometer? They are rarely accurate but a salt test will tell you how far off it reads. Humidity numbers don't mean much if the unit is reading 10% high or low.

Salt test:

Quart zip seal bag (if small hygrometer sandwich size), milk cap or similar size cap, salt and bit of water.

Fill cap with salt.
Add drops of water until it is like wet sand not a slurry.
Put hygrometer and cap in the zip bag and seal with good amount of air inside.
Wait 6 hours and note your hygrometer reading the salt enviornment will be exactly 75%
Write on masking tap how much the calibration is (difference of your reading and 75%) and tape it to your incubator as a reminder.

I candle eggs on day 7 and again day 14 to check the air sac growth in fat end of egg. Monitoring this will let you know if your humidity is too high or too low. If the growth isn't close to diagram then let incubator go dry again for few days or more so it catches up. Likewise more humidity if the sac is getting too large. It barely grows at 60%. I personally go for 35% humidity for first 18 days. To achieve that in my enviornment only a double shot glass of water is needed sitting next to the turner. Humidity is effected by surface area of water, use larger or smaller containers to get to where you want to be.

Does salt amount vs ziploc bag size effect this at all? I used a childs medicine cup with about 1/8 inch of salt, wet it till it clumped when stirred, and put in a gallon sized ziploc. Let it go all night and came out @ 66% (so 9% low). Do you always offset by 9% or would i calculate it as a ratio (meaning if the hygrometer read 33% instead of 66% would i still add 9 or would calculate out half the error which would be 4.5)