Humidity

[Baralak]

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[midget_farms]

Thanks Team!

This is the bator I built

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=424059

I have 2 trays of water - one has a washcloth the other has nothing added. Sorry - no pics of that.

I was thinking I'd slide one of the trays closer to the fan to increase humidity & maybe add a couple of sponges to it when the time comes.


Eggs get here mid week! lets see how it goes.

 

[feathers4fun]

Remember that humidity is "relative" to the ambient tempertature 70% humidity at 70 degrees will be about 40% at 100 degrees. If you use sponges stand them up vertically a flat sponge in a pan creates no more surface area for evaporation than the surface area of just the water. Surface area is needed whether you put more water pans in or add sponges. I have 80% hatch rates with my cabinet model and I run 58% humidity all the time. I wonder if the hen increases humidity at 18 days? or read the book?

 

[GreenGoddess]

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Don't make the mistake i did when i built my last incubator.. I had 2 trays (plastic tops from cake tins that were cut down to make them shorter) for water.. They really did work great and I put a small amount of food coloring in the water so I could see it better).. They were back to back but one was closer to the heat source and the other was towards the front of the bator... I found out the hard way that i could not use the one closest to the heat source because it would evaporate so quickly (within hours)! I always had to use the one in front and there were a few times I almost had to overfill it just to get the humidity up...

Goddess

 

[midget_farms]

I drilled the extra holes this afternoon - now my humidity is at 30%.

Funny what you said about relative humidity - when I turned it off over x-mas - new years I leaft the water in there & the humidity was 70% - but the temp was 60*. Now the temp is 100 +- & the humidity is low.

I'm going to pull the wash cloth & add the sponge (standing on its side) & see what happens. I'm sure I'll get some to hatch - but I'm setting a ton of eggs - I want a ton of chicks!

 

[BlacksheepCardigans]

Don't make the vent holes pluggable. The eggs need oxygen and they need it the very most when they're getting ready to hatch. An egg at 19-20 days is using only a tiny bit less oxygen than the hatched chick will be.

If you've made the typical big homemade incubator, the kind where it'll fit 100 eggs but in fact if you stacked them it could fit a thousand eggs (in other words, there's a ton of air space in there), drill another hole near the bottom and snake aquarium tubing in there so you can add water using a big oral syringe. Opening the top to add water will nuke your humidity for hours.

I have used paper towels (dried out too fast), cellulose sponges (the kind the come flat and they pop up when you add water - I don't like the scrubby kind because they add stuff to it to keep it soft in the package, and I didn't want the eggs exposed to anything but pure water - sponges worked great, didn't dry out for a good day or so and were easy to add hot water to), and my latest one is using maxipads. Maxipads are the most embarrassing to explain but they work BEAUTIFULLY and they have the advantage of lying pretty flat. Not an issue if you have a big incubator but fantastic if you have a small one.

 

[kvmommy]

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Don't maxi pads have more chemicals than sponges, because they have that stuff to absorb liquid? I don't know if its the same stuff thats in diapers, but its a powder that turns into a gel. My dogs gotten into a few dipers and the gel that comes out of wet diapers doesnt look too good to me. Which is why i use cloth diapers 1/2 time.

 

[midget_farms]

OK - ewww


I added another post on my complete incubator. But - I found a couple copper tubes @ Menards that now go through the wall to the water trays & I added a HUGE car wash sponge that was on clearance for $0.78

The humidity is currently @45% & holding - I have only a small amount of water in the second tray - we will see how it looks in a couple days - the eggs show up this week!!!!

 

[Livinwright Farm]

Placed the reader directly over one of the vent holes on our Little Giant bator... looking good for day 21! Espescially when you know that we are in NH, it's WINTER here, and we are in a log cabin(aka: Giant Dry Sponge)! Can't wait for these, our first, rockin' eggs to hatch out!

 

[Livinwright Farm]

Oh, and incase anyone is wondering... the 49.1 degree reading is the reading from our barn