Incubation questions

[dancechick915]

The thing that controls humidity levels is surface area. You probably spilled some water somewhere you did not mean to and got the inside of the incubator a bit wet. As it evaporated the humidity spiked. Once that excess moisture evaporated (that area dried off) the humidity stabilized.

Adding cold water or at least water cooler than incubation temperature is great. It won't take the incubator long to heat it up. The incubator is very well insulated, if you add hot water it can raise the temperature inside higher than you wish. The way the incubator reduces heat is that the heater does not run for a while so it gradually cools off. With that well-insulated incubator you might get a temperature spike that lasts for a while that can be harmful if you use hot water.

Your incubator is supposed to be a forced air. That means you have a fan inside so the temperature should be the same anywhere you measure it. In a still air you have to be careful where you take the measurement.

Instantaneous humidity is not that important. What is important is that the egg loses a certain amount of moisture throughout the entire incubation process. Through trial and error I've determined that I get the best hatches with an average humidity of 39%, give or take. If mine runs at 50% for a few days I will try to run it at 30% for a few days to average it out. Mother Nature was kind to us. You don't have to be dead on with humidity or moisture loss to get a good hatch you just need to be in the ballpark. But you do need to be in the ballpark, humidity is important.

Those temperatures and temperature swings don't look bad. Again Mother Nature was kind to us. If you are within a degree or so you will get eggs to hatch. Again it is the average that counts. If your average incubation temperature is a bit high the eggs may hatch early, if it is a bit cool they can be late, maybe a couple of days either way.. It takes a while for the inside of the egg to heat up or cool off when the air temperature inside the incubator changes. A temporary spike or cooling off isn't that bad, but you don't want it to stay too hot too long to where the inside of the egg gets hot enough to cook the developing chick. 101 F probably won't kill the chick, 103 F for long enough to heat the inside of the egg will. You want the inside of the egg to be as close to 99.5 F as you reasonably can, but being off a half a degree is not a death sentence. It's actually not bad.

All in all that does not look bad. Good luck with the hatch.

Thank you so much for the info!