I'm about to set my next batch of eggs in the incubator and am going through the set up. I decided to salt test my hygrometer again, just to be sure, even though I've salt-tested it before and know it's 10+ points off. The instructions usually say to leave it in the bag for 8-12 hours. After about 10 hours, it read 62-63%, like it did last year. However, I forgot to take it out of the bag and let it sit there until the next day. And, as important scientific discoveries tend to happen - by pure accident - I made a very important discovery by forgetting to take my hygrometer out. I came back the next day, after a full 24 hours in the bag, and it was showing 72%!!!! This is a significant change from 62, and much closer to the target of 75. So my poor hygrometer wasn't wildly inaccurate after all - it was just very slow to reach and display the humidity in the bag! This is important for hatching purposes, because 10 percentage points is a big difference. Being that far off may affect your hatch. My hatch went okay last year - 50% hatch rate on shipped eggs, which is to be expected - but now I'm wondering, could it have gone better? Air cells varied a lot between eggs and were misshapen, because of shipping stress, so it's hard to judge.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there in case somebody finds it useful. Give your hygrometers a full 24 hours when salt testing, just in case. And make sure the bag doesn't fall onto and cover the opening of the container with the salt slurry.
Now I won't mentally adjust my humidity readings when deciding whether to add water to the incubator or not. I can just take the reading as is, since 3 points isn't all that much.
UPDATE: A couple more hours later and the hygrometer reached 74%!!! May have even reached a full 75, but I wanted to put it in the incubator already and lost patience waiting. This further proves my point. These little digital hygrometers aren't inaccurate, just very slow! The reading drops really fast when I take the hygrometer out of the bag, so it's not always slow... I wish I'd discovered this earlier, so I'd have more time to do tests and see what shifts are reflected slowly and what faster, but my hatching eggs have arrived and I need to set them soon.
Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there in case somebody finds it useful. Give your hygrometers a full 24 hours when salt testing, just in case. And make sure the bag doesn't fall onto and cover the opening of the container with the salt slurry.
Now I won't mentally adjust my humidity readings when deciding whether to add water to the incubator or not. I can just take the reading as is, since 3 points isn't all that much.
UPDATE: A couple more hours later and the hygrometer reached 74%!!! May have even reached a full 75, but I wanted to put it in the incubator already and lost patience waiting. This further proves my point. These little digital hygrometers aren't inaccurate, just very slow! The reading drops really fast when I take the hygrometer out of the bag, so it's not always slow... I wish I'd discovered this earlier, so I'd have more time to do tests and see what shifts are reflected slowly and what faster, but my hatching eggs have arrived and I need to set them soon.
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