incubater temperatures

[Jake G]

I have an incubater that will hold around 300 eggs and i am wanting to know what the temperature and what the humidity should be set on.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I assume chicken eggs?

Do you have instructions that came with it? Can you find the company that made it online and find instructions there?

Have you calibrated the thermometer and hygrometer to verify they are reading correctly?

Rebel’s Thermometer Calibration
http://cmfarm.us/ThermometerCalibration.html

Rebel’s Hygrometer Calibration
http://cmfarm.us/HygrometerCalibration.html

Even with all that, there is going to be some trial and error involved. We have such different conditions as far as temperature of the air going into the incubator, background humidities, even height above sea level so we have different air pressures, and who knows what else that there is no one humidity or even temperature that is absolutely right for all of us with all incubators. Even moving an incubator from one side of a room to another can change things some. This comes from people that use incubators that may each old 60,000 or even 120,000 eggs and that hatch maybe 1,000,000 chicks a week. Each incubator has to be learned and tweaked for optimum performance.

With a forced air incubator, the recommended temperature is 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In a forced air, the temperature should be the same throughout. In a still air, sometimes called thermal air, the temperature can vary a lot depending on where you take the temperature inside since hot air rises. The usual recommendation is 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit at the top of the eggs. With the size of yours, I’d expect it to be a forced air, that is have a fan to move the air inside.

Humidity is trickier. At different times of the year if I don’t add any water, I might get a reading of 15% or I might get 30%. If I fill one water reservoir, I might get 30% or 50%. That’s with the incubator in the exact same place. Mine is a forced air. What I get just depends on the air going into it. The saving grace with humidity though is that there is a pretty wide range of humidities that work.

What I suggest is to try to get your temperature as close as you can to the recommended (verify by calibration) then just pick a target humidity and see what happens. Try to be consistent so if you need to adjust something based on your hatch you have clue where to start adjusting. I suggest targeting maybe 40% to 45% the first 18 days them maybe 65% to 70% during lockdown. If you want to target something else, no problem. Those work for me but they don’t work for some other people. Just try to be consistent.

Good luck with it. The process is really pretty forgiving. As long as you get close you will probably have success.

 

[Jake G]

Thank you for the help,
I bought it off of a women and she did not have an instrustion manual with it. She said that she kept the humidity at 40 to 45 % and the tempeture at 100 to 104 degrees.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Does it have a make and model on it? Try searching online for the instructions.

Or start a new thread on here with the make and model in the thread title, hoping to get the attention of someone who has one.

 

[Jake G]

i will do that Thanks!

 

[anttrim]

Can anyone tell me if a hova-bater w/turner is a good starter. My legbars will be ready in 6 months ,so im trying to propare.
A few swedish flowers in there as well. See the white spot on the roosters heads in the center. 2 roos and 6 pullets on the legbars, and who knows what the flower hens are. We now have sweds from 3 different sources.