Incubating; humidity trouble, PLEASE HELP ME!!!

[Joey81]

Ok i have what i was told is a dickey cabinet incubator. It has 3 tilting egg racks and a hatch tray at the bottum and has a wafer thermostat that has i guess a snap switch attached to it and looks like another snap switch by itself but is a different color. I know the one with the wafer is to change the temperature but what is the other lever thing for? I was told that i could put eggs in it whenever i wanted because that was the greatness of a cabinet incubator, but i have been told to not open it that much either. So which is it. Also my temperature stays at about 99.9 degrees and i just bought 2 hydromoters to go in it and I put 1 on top and the other on bottum by the hatching tray and the top reads 41 degrees and the bottum read 43 degrees. So i have been looking and it looks like a good temperature is about 50-60RH but what about the other eggs when you have to make it a higher temperature on the last 3 days for the ones that are going to hatch. Should i just keep the humidity at about 50 on the hydromoter or what? How do I get the humidity on the hydromoter/incubator to rise if so cause mine stays at 42-43 on the hydromoter? Please help i am very desperate.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Did you calibrate the hygrometer's first? You calibrate them to know how much they are off, then you can reliably measure humidity.

http://exoticpets.about.com/od/herpresources/ss/hygrometer.htm

 

[feedstorechick]

I don't worry about opening my cabinet incubator. Mine has a solid door, so I have to open it to see when to add water to the tray. It is very stable and gets back to temperature quickly. Mine has two wafers, each with a snap switch. Possibly your backup wafer and switch is down to just a switch.

Hold your eggs and set them in batches about once a week, not one a time. I don't worry that much about the exact humidity, but I do try to keep the tray from running totally out of water.

 

[Joey81]

Yes I calibrated them and I even switched them around and got the same humidity reading. I was going to start waiting on the eggs and do it every 6 days that way it leaves me a few days to open and close if i need to. I also converted the incubator to where i can fill the pan with water automatically without opening it. It is still staying at 42 on teh hydromoter. The bad thing is that i have about 15 good fertile mallard eggs and some brown indian runner eggs in the hatch tray but have other eggs in the egg racks incubating so what do I do? So do i try to get the humidity up and how do I do it, the water pan has a good amount of water in it and the temp is staying at 99.9 degrees.

 

[Joey81]

Update!! Well i went and bought a wider and longer pan just not as deep and put it on the top shelf by the fan and put a sponge in the pan also and the humidty went up to 49% in the top and i put the other pan in the very back of the hatching tray and the bottum went up to 46% humidity. I think I can live with that but am a little confused. I know the eggs in the hatching tray need higher humidity but i dont know how to do that. Someone please help.

 

[babymakes6]

Take a washcloth and make it wet and set it in there-that will up your humidity very fast and keep it up.

 

[Joey81]

Thank you. I have more sponges should i put those in there to and if so should i put them in the water pan or just set them in there somewhere that i can find room?