Incubator Questions

[holachicka]

Try putting a clean wet sponge in there. I learned that to increase humidity you have to increase the surface area of the water, so a wet sponge or two, or a wide shallow dish of water should help. Good luck!!

 

[AngieChick]

Quote:
Try putting a board over most of the top. Or better, a lid to the bucket. If you use a lid make sure you poke a few nice sized holes for ventilation. Keep a close eye on the heat. You can put a layer of vermiculite (or maybe even sand?) over the heating pad, under the eggs. This will act as a heat sink and help keep your temps steadier.

 

[obsidianembrace]

I tried the sponge idea at it put the humidity to 27%, but the lowered the temp to 97.3. I don't have a heating pad in the incubator, the eggs are heated by a light bulb. Would the sand idea still maybe help?

 

[holachicka]

How long did you wait after adding the sponge? It takes a little while for the temp/humidity to stabilize after making changes. You can also add canning jars of water with lids as heat sinks, one in each corner. Make sure you are using warm water to add, or that could be dropping your temps too. Also, maybe a higher wattage light bulb? Keep tweaking it, you'll get it where you want it!

 

[obsidianembrace]

It's been a few hours with the sponge now. The sponge is still wet, but the humidity is at 20% again. The temp is at 99.8 now, which is better than usual.

Bonnie has six eggs outside in their dog kennel in their pen, so it's the best place for them. We're letting her keep them. She had four yesterday and now two today, so I think she'll be getting closer to actually sitting on them. Right now she's not sitting on them, she's out in the yard.

 

[Sweetfolly]

Okay - you get the humidity up by increasing the surface area of water: a wide, shallow pan will raise the humidity much higher than a narrow, deep cup or bowl.

I get the humidity up in my incubators by covering the bottom with wet washcloths (my Brinsea Octagon 20 Eco incubator has water channels in the bottom, so I dip the edges of the washcloths into the channels so that they stay wet until the channels dry out - you could probably rig up something similar with washcloths and dishes of water).

Like holachicka said, only use very warm water so that it doesn't cause a temperature drop. If your incubator is heated by a lightbulb, it's a good idea to have a high-wattage bulb on a dimmer so you can adjust it around some - BUT, I wouldn't mess with that now that you already have eggs in there - just for future reference.

Another thing - you might already know this, but just in case - since your humidity has been so low, do not mist the eggs at all! A lot of people mist Call duck eggs with warm water a few times a day - it's supposed to increase hatch rates, there are people that swear by it. However, spraying water on the egg will cause moisture to be drawn out of the egg as it evaporates off the shell. It sounds backwards, but misting the eggs makes them dry out more. So, in your case, misting them is probably a bad idea.

 

[obsidianembrace]

Yes, my mom suggested misting them and I felt like that was a bad idea. Temp's fluctuating between 98.4 and 101.3. Not good, but it's fluctuating quickly. I'm getting more hot water to poor on top of the sponge to try and increase humidity again.

How would the wet washcloth thing work? Don't the eggs themselves need to stay dry?

 

[Sweetfolly]

Do you think (I don't know exactly how your incubator is designed, so this may not work) that you could get a cookie cooling rack like this:

Put that on the bottom of the 'bator, put the eggs on that, and then just fill up the whole bottom of the incubator underneath the rack with shallow water (unless you have ventilation holes in the bottom)? That's going to get you a LOT of surface area for evaporation to increase the humidity.

My incubator has a tray that the eggs go in that is raised above the water channels - I can take the whole tray out to add water or washcloths.

And, for heat-sinks, canning jars full of water are a really good idea, or rocks....just something to fill up some of the empty space.

 

[obsidianembrace]

Humidity's been holding steady at 27% for almost an hour. Temp is lower though. I don't have a cooling rack small enough but i think we're going to put the eggs on a plate on top of an upside down bowl and then fill it up. We can only fill it about half an inch though.

Hot water would be best, but should I drain the water when it cools down and add hot water?

 

[holachicka]

Oh! one more thing!! Did you calibrate your hygrometer? That might be part of the prob, especially if you add more surface area (sponge) and it goes back to 20% ... since you are already incubating, I suggest buying a really cheap one from home depot or petsmart... calibrating that and throwing it in to see true humidity if you have not already calibrated...