Increased humidity too high?

[KEarthman]

Good Morning!
Our incubator is on lockdown with a dry hatch. Everything has been going great with all of the "numbers". It usually stays at 30 % humidity during incubation and we aim for 65% during lockdown. The vent is wide open. Yesterday the humidity shot to 73%. Is 73% ok before anything has peeped or pipped or hatched? We're in the last 11 hours of 21 days. Now that it's hatch time, is it irrelevant that it was a regular or a dry hatch? Thank you & have a Blessed day! K

 

[K0k0shka]

I think it's fine. Not long left to go and at this point high humidity is fine. It's going to shoot up once the first chick hatches anyway, even if the rest have more time left to go.

 

[KEarthman]

Ha ha, you're right about that! This is only our 4th overall hatch. 2nd dry. This is the first hatch that the humidity has shot up on lockdown when nothing was happening with the eggs yet. Last hatch we had 3 BCM hatch 2 days late! There were no peeps, pips, or zips that time until the last 12 hours. Technically the 21 days is up about 11 hours from now. And if I understand everything correctly, since it has been a dry incubation at 30% the first 18 days, high humidity during lockdown is no biggy.

 

[hysop]

That's fine. I am for 60-70% so 73% is fine.
When they start hatching it will skyrocket to like 95% by itself at least it has for me.

 

[K0k0shka]

Ha ha, you're right about that! This is only our 4th overall hatch. 2nd dry. This is the first hatch that the humidity has shot up on lockdown when nothing was happening with the eggs yet. Last hatch we had 3 BCM hatch 2 days late! There were no peeps, pips, or zips that time until the last 12 hours. Technically the 21 days is up about 11 hours from now. And if I understand everything correctly, since it has been a dry incubation at 30% the first 18 days, high humidity during lockdown is no biggy.

30% isn't really dry though, that's normal incubation. 30-40% pre-lockdown and 60-70% during lockdown are sort of the standard. Dry incubation is below 30%, down to 15%. I keep mine around 30% pre-lockdown and then up the humidity to 70-75% for lockdown. Once the chicks start hatching and the open eggs and chick fluff start drying out, the humidity often rises as high as 90%. I've had no problems with that. It drops back down when you open the incubator to take the fluffed babies out.

 

[Bellelise]

Ive had a rough go of it in the last 24hrs. Im working with wild pheasant eggs. Its my very first hatch- ever. Its been wonderful. 1 out of 8 so far.
Its also been very stressful & the humidity is all over the place 48% - 77% (rh).
Once it leveled out I had to just walk away.