Humidity

[3 sisters farm]

My last hatch went bad, only one spontaneous chick at day 23-24 I rescued some that had piped after several piped ones had died in the shell. I've heard so much back and forth on humidity. The room I use has 60% humidity typically....so that would be my base point. It appears my barnevelder and wellsummers drowned....while my buff orphingtons all got so stuck they died in shell as did the blue andulusan...I did sucessfully rescue a BO for a few hours, and have 2 rescued spotted sussex plus 1 which hatched well immediately....no I waited over 24 hours before I briefly opened bator grabbed two eggs removed....dead...but I had pips after 3-4 died stuck in shells....then the rescue mission. On post mortum....all in hatcher a hovabator with fan had chicks fully developed but 2...these 2 likely just short of full development. My bator takes less than 10 minutes to recover to 75% humidity and temp....I've checked with a watch and 2 meters.....differet eggs, different sellers all shipped. I had nearly 100% developement of my orpingtons, sussex and andulusians, wellsummer and barnevelder. Zero percent on amerecanas....purchased from 3 sources!!!!! any thoughts. I have 4 eggs coming off today americana another try...these 4 developed out of a dozen from a 4th seller....all other varities have developed well. Any suggestions....also best humidity to hatch at, I've heard a couple of numbers. mary

 

[Tom Gant]

Mary, I am like you. I have herd several different humidity levels and don' know exactly what level it should or can be at.

 

[ginbart]

With all the reading I do on here I thought you were only to go to 70% humidity at the most? I only did 3 hatches but from what I read I think it sould be, the first 18 days, 40 to 50% and days 18 to 21 up to 70% or close to that. But I don't think it should be above 70. I'm sure someone with more experience will help you.

Good luck this time.

 

[CountryMom]

I too have had a mess trying to hatch at 70% to 75% humidity. More drowned chicks than anything. I had three shipped sets of eggs this year and only one was bad. I had four of 18 develope and only one hatched. The other shipped batches hatched out at about half or just over and then the rest of the eggs were drown in their shells but developed. This last batch I hatched out yesterday were of my own quail eggs. I reduced my humidity to between 50 and 55%. Once they started hatching it spiked up to 60% and held. I had a 75% hatch rate. I did discover that some of the eggs never developed so that acounted for 10% that didn't hatch. Being late in the breeding season for quail I figured it would happen.

I am going to try a couple of our mixed silkie eggs here in a week to see if the humidity works for them. I don't want to mess with shipped eggs until I have this straight. And I have thrown out the LG bator after it spiked to 125 and cooked 100 of my quail eggs. I am sticking with my Hovabators from now on.

 

[Tom Gant]

Is there different type of humidity readings?

Here is a site. Let me know what you think.

http://www.msstate.edu/dept/poultry/hatch.htm#inc