The last unexpected baby that I knew nothing about also died today. He popped the internal membrane last night and it was day 18. Today is Day 19 and he tried to pip the shell but it was face down..the water in the bottom part of the incubator may have been too much but that's the only thing that kept my humidity above 60..he didn't get air in time and died. His membrane was pretty wet. His yolk sack wasn't even fully absorbed yet and temp was at 100 all day. I was at work watchin my incubator all day from a webcam. I am highly annoyed and sad again. But kind of at ease bc he wouldn't have to be alone. I have 3 duck eggs and about 11 chicken eggs in my newly incubated set. I had 15 chicken eggs but 4 died the day the power went out. This is probably the last time I will try for a long time. I got an auto Turner this time too..bc i dont wanna risk anything else.[/Q
Is there room in your incubator to place a sponge somewhere? If you wet it and squeeze excess out it can help bring humidity up and won't have to worry about drowning. They can also drown in she'll from too high humidity during incubating. I have had trouble keeping mine up last few days due to weather change. It's evaporating so quickly by morning I have no water left in tray and it's down to 25 to 30%. The water doesn't need to be deep either, it's surface area of water that makes it higher or lower and not depth of water. The bigger the area the higher it'll be and smaller to decrease. My setup is a bit different since it's homemade using the fan and heat/thermostat from a cheap countertop incubator inside a styrofoam cooler. My modified incubator has a water tray but it's very small and evaporates completely dry overnight so I had to add a sponge that just sits on bottom of cooler. I use a regular thermometer over the heat/fan and a digital with hygrometer by eggs. I also have unopened water bottles inside it to take up space, distribute heat, and just in case power goes it'll stay warm a lil better due to the water in bottles being warm too. I am due for my chicken eggs to go into lockdown today, but I candled this morning and I'm gonna wait til tomorrow cuz they don't seem to be ready yet. I'm thinking it's due to a slight drop in temp half way thru incubation. So, I'll lock them down tomorrow morning after I candle again.
