Incubator set 60% humidity for days 1-16

[Nicoleshetler]

Hello, all! I'm new to this. I decided to let Google set my humidity in my incubator at 60%. I'm on day 16 and I'm now realizing through research that I set the incubator higher than many recommend. The lady who i got my eggs from recommended dropping humidity immediately to 40% to try to increase the air cell. I'm so upset that I messed this up. Any suggestions? Any optimistic stories of people who had incubators set to 60% in the beginning would also help me feel a lot better

 

[GodLovesU]

I never pay much attention to humidity. I still have managed to get some great hatches, as long as I had good quality eggs.

 

[Debbie292d]

I incubate at 40-45%. 60% isn't a make or break, but it's harder on them inside that shell. I think being at 40% for the remaining couple of days until lockdown will probably even things out for them. They should be fine. I'd still go back up to 65-70% at lockdown though.

 

[Jessgitalong]

Hello there. I just got some really useful information about this!

What you want is to lose between 14 and 20% of the moisture in the egg to create an adequate air chamber in the egg. Depending upon the ambient humidity where you live, it may take lowering or increasing the humidity in the incubator to facilitate this loss. If your incubator lacks airflow, you’ll want your humidity a little lower. If you live in a dry environment, you’ll want to prevent too much water loss, and you’ll want your incubator set to higher humidity.

Living in Hawaii, sometimes our weather creates high humidity. It did this with my first hatching. Our humidity was at 80%+ at times. Partly due to this, I had a 75% loss. I thought it was soley because the eggs had sat out too long before incubation. Looking back with what I know now, it was clear that there wasn’t adequate moisture loss to facilitate enough airspace in many of the eggs at the high end of the typical, recommended humidity.

My situation is a bit extreme, but a good illustration of the concept. I am now keeping my incubator at 40%, as well as selecting out any flaws I see on the shells to optimize my hatch rates.

What were your results?