o.k. I have the King Suro 20 incubator. I am having real trouble with the humidity ( temp is fine ). At the moment it is sitting on high 50 - low 60% humidity, which isn't good. I can't lower it in anyway. When ever I take the top of the humidity drops down to 48% in just a few seconds ( I am assuming that's the out side humid% ). I haven't had the water pump connected for 3 days, well because I don't need it. I am about 4 days into incubation. Is there anything I can do or should I just abort?
That humidity is a little higher than you usually want it to be (45-55% is best). However, chicken embryos are suprisingly adaptive and hardy, even if the conditions aren't quite perfect. I've had successful hatches even with the humidity a little high or low. I'd still try to hatch the eggs.
I’m not familiar with that incubator at all. With my Hovabator I can have anywhere from humidity in the low teens to the mid-30’s with the water wells dry. It just depends on the background humidity and the temperature of the air going into the incubator. Since you are heating the air that is going in there and warm air can hold more moisture than cooler air, the relative humidity inside the incubator should be lower than the background humidity, but yes, that can still be pretty high. I personally don’t trust the thermometers and hydrometers that come with the incubators, even the good incubators. Have you either tried to calibrate that hygrometer (probably not possible) or used an independent calibrated hygrometer to verify that the humidity is what you are actually getting? I know your water pump is off but with the humidity that high, it sure sounds like something is wet so evaporation can take place and keep the humidity up. Do you have any kind of water reservoirs you can empty to remove moisture? Even if you can empty a reservoir, it may still be wet and keep the humidity up until it dries. Do you have plugs you can take out to increase ventilation? That should reduce the humidity some. I would not abort either but that is dangerously high humidity. There has to be a fix. You might try calling or e-mailing the manufacturer and talk to them about it. I’ve had reasonable success talking to the manufacturer about mine.
O.k thank heaps for the help guys. I was told to open the ventilation a bit and it has gotten a little less humid outside so the bator is down to about 56% which is pretty good. I think it really is just being affected by the out side humidity because when I got it our of storage a couple weeks back it was running fine. If the humidity jumps up again I will try to move the whole bator to a more controlled place in the house. ( I have already had 2 good hatches from this bator and the place it has been ). This might just be a weird one of?!?! not sure. Thanks again.
