Incubator frustrations

[Alex#242]

So my family bought me a plastic no name Chinese 48 egg incubator with the yellow lid and clear bottom for Christmas. Usually I just use a styrofoam incubator that I bought years ago from southern states. So I decided to give this incubator a try with half a dozen Wyandotte eggs. After putting the incubator inside the styrofoam I finally got the temperature to hold at 99.5 checking it with a digital thermometer since the temperature on the display isn’t accurate. The eggs have been in the incubator for a couple of days. I come in today and the humidity on the incubator is reading 65% and the digital thermometer inside the incubator is reading 80%. There is almost no water in resivior. I have no idea what’s going on? Does anyone have any advice?

 

[JaeG]

It's the surface area of the water that increases/decreases the humidity. I had exactly the same problem in my cheap, chinese incubator. So I didn't put any in the water wells and just added a small cup of water next to the eggs. Filling the wells works beautifully for lockdown, but prior to that they are just too big. Good luck!

 

[Alex#242]

Ok I’ll try drying up the water and just place a cup in there and see what happens

 

[007Sean]

Depending on your location, the humidity should be adjusted for the ambient humidity at your location or where your gator is set up.
At my location ambient humidity is usually around 35%, so I use to add a couple of table spoons of water to bring the humidity up to 45-50% humidity. That's when I use a styrofoam bator. Most of my hatching is done in a DIY "knock off" GQF cabinet bator, which I have rigged a humidifier with regulator to keep the humidity at whatever % I need for any particular species of bird eggs I'm hatching.

Play around with it until you get the humidity where you want it.