For those who want to try these, I've got a cheat-sheet of how I do it:
Ala, cut & paste!! Here it is:
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ChooksChicks Henthusiasts Styrofoam Incubator Cheat Sheet
The rule is: get the temp right with an empty incubator, and make sure it's stable for 48 hours- without the plugs, without you touching it.
Use 3 (yes, 3!) of the sealed-in-glass aquarium thermometers from Wally World ($1.70 each, I always have at least a dozen on hand for my 6 incubators). They have a little green suction cup- I leave it on and move it to the weighted end for one, the top end on another and the middle for the third. This makes them a slight bit different in elevation in the incubator as the turner moves, so you can average them for the true temp. Place them where it will be easy to read from the windows, and turn them in the suction cup so they're angled correctly to read the red line. They need to be on the turner, wedged between eggs so you can read what the center of the egg is, internally. This is the only reliable way, as the thermometers that come with the incubators on cardboard change as humidity changes, and they tell you the eggs' top temperature or the temp on the floor! Took forever to figure out my incubator wasn't really spiking as badly as the thermometer said, but that the temp spikes were due to the cardboard shrinking and swelling from humidity!
When you put eggs in, it will take hours to get stable again- ignore it!!! The temp will drop when you first add eggs. Don't adjust it at all. After a day with eggs, you can put a plug in to go up a degree or two. You can add another plug if you need to. If you're over 101.5* 24 hours after you add eggs, you can turn the thing down A HAIR. That's all. Don't adjust again for a day- be patient. **Don't dismiss this recommendation. ** You can go up a degree or two per plug you add at this point, too. Try not to use the knob to adjust.
If the temp isn't too hot- like 102* consistently, I don't turn it down. If it's not below 98* consistently, I don't turn it up. I add a plug and wait 24 hours. I haven't adjusted my thermostats in 6+ months. You can get it stable. My incubators are always full. **So are my brooders.**
Ignore humidity until day 18. For lockdown, roll up paper towels and stuff them in the water channels, then fill the channels. Lay another paper towel across the wire. I use them because they're disposable, so they won't harbor bacteria, and they increase the surface area of the evaporative substrate. You'll then have BOTH sides of the paper towel exposed on the wire, plus the surface of the ones rolled up in the channels, which swell to rise over the channels themselves. You'll easily hit 80% if you follow my instructions. Put the eggs on the now wet paper towel which will have absorbed water from the paper towels poking up out of the water channels, and make sure the whole lot stay wet for 3 days while in lockdown. If you must add water (which is likely) use tubing through the holes on the top of the incubator or open a window to do it. Don't open the lid!!
I've hatched hundreds or thousands of eggs this way- YOU MUST GET IT STABLE BEFORE YOU ADD EGGS.
ACK!! One more thing. If you only have one machine, it's best to use cardboard cartons to hatch them. Otherwise, when you take out the turner the eggs are laying so much lower than they were in the turner that the temps are no longer appropriate and they're way too cold. This is important! Even a tiny bit of difference in height can mean a big difference in yolk-temp so you might wipe them out in the last 3 days if you don't use a carton or prop up the wire. You can mark the turner edge on the styrofoam and use that line to help you position the wire on shallow bowls or compote cups to get the middle of the eggs at the same height they were for the first 18 days. Put the wire back in and you're good to go.
If you have had both plugs out the whole time, you might be able to get the right temp for them lying on the floor by just plugging both holes, but that's an unknown factor until you've tried it, and you don't want to find out with eggs that are about to hatch. I use a separate machine as the hatcher to avoid this conundrum.
>>>Hope it makes sense!
Let me know if you have any questions!
-Renee
