Inconsistent humidity ok?

[watership]

I am on day 7, and I have 8 eggs in a mini brinsea. I was doing a dry incubation, humidity has been around 30-35%, and since it's been rainy here, I wasn't too worried about it. But I weighed them this evening and they've already lost 7% of their weight. So I added water to one well, and the humidity is now at 60%. Is that a problem, for the humidity to jump around so much? The temp has been very consistent, and I calibrated the hygrometer before starting, so I assume it's accurate.

 

[The Chickeneer]

It is bad for the humidity to jump so far from where it was. Usualy a 10%-15% difference won't affect the eggs. But from 35 to 60 is quite a bit. As long as it didn't stay at 60% for too long, don't worry about it. When ever you pour water in the well, do a little at a time: pour some in, wait 15 minuits and check the hydrometer, then pour again if needed. Never pour a large amount at one time. If it was at 60% for less than an hour or two then I wouldn't worry about it. Hope the eggs do ok, good luck!

 

[MapleLeaf86]

Never pour a large amount at one time.

I learned this on my first attempt, it's good advice. Accidentally spiked it to 80% a few times...

 

[Crysalismum]

I think it will be fine- any humidity is ok, spikes don't matter, consistent very high humidity throughout will increase DIS/sticky ones

 

[watership]

I'm confused then as to how humidity works; I thought it had to do with the surface area in the water well, not how much you poured in. So if I add less, the humidity won't be as high?

 

[Grassman 52]

Humidity is controlled by surface area along with ventilation - If your humidity spikes after adding water try opening the vents to let it escape.
The main thing you want to watch is the weight loose - Dial in your humidity to get the weight loose at the correct rate.

 

[watership]

Ok, that makes more sense to me, to control the humidity with the vents rather than the water well depth. I was trying to reign in weight loss with increased humidity, it was just such a huge spike that I got worried. Its back to 53% today, and I'll weigh them again tomorrow to see if the weight loss hopefully has slowed down.

 

[thasista]

Do a search on "dry incubation". I don't add any water to increase the humidity until eggs go in the hatcher or "lockdown". Its a pretty successful way to incubate.

 

[watership]

I did read about dry incubation, which was why I hadn't added any water to the well. I live in So Cal, and even though we had a couple rainy days, the weather was mostly dry, and we had the central heat on, so I think the room humidity was overall low, because the eggs were losing weight too rapidly (at that rate, I think they would have lost about 18% of their weight by lockdown, and I thought I was supposed to shoot for around 13%). I was hoping to not tinker with the humidity, but I think it's too dry here to do a completely dry hatch.

 

[Grassman 52]

I was having the same problem in the Northeast - In the fall I hatched dry because the humidity was high naturally - now its winter with the heat on my basement dropped to 10% humidity and the air cells (and weight loss) was to much - filled the water tray and dialed in the air vents on my cabinet incubator.