Incubator Temp not high enough

[Jason Needham]

Forced air cabinet style incubator, the highest temp I can get is 97.7 and the controller is maxed out. Will this temp be high enough to hatch eggs? The guy I'm borrowing from said he hatched quail with it last year with 95% hatch rate. Could the heating element be bad? Help please..
Thanks,
Jason

 

[2txmedics]

Ive done and am doing a hatch of buff orps, cuckoo marans and RIRs...and they are hatchings...Im sitting at 94 temp, was at 99 at one time...I started Aug 5th was due aug 7th...you dont want to fry them....

 

[william9792]

could the temp guage be wrong? i would get a new temp guage just to make sure it was that low. william

 

[hinkjc]

I would say if it is reading that low and the chicks hatch, then the temp guage is reading inaccurately and the temp is actually higher than it says.

I incubated eggs with a themometer that said it was 100F and all the eggs grew but didn't hatch. I bought another thermometer to check the reading and the true temp was actually 94F (6 degrees too low). From my experience they will not hatch if it is too low - how far too low, I'm not sure, but I know at 94F they don't hatch for sure.

 

[Jason Needham]

Anyone got any ideas.

 

[Emilys3guppies]

Quote:
First thing is to see if your thermomestat is accurate. If it is accurate I think that you should move it to a warmer room in the house, or run a space heater in the room. Raising the ambient temperature will greatly affect the temperature in the incubator.

All the best,
Emily

 

[DANNY]

Well it's not likely the heating element is bad because it is heating. What kind of thermostat do you have? It is possible you have a emu and ostrich incubator that was built to hatch ratites at a lower temperature. I you have a backup system cahnge to it and see what happens. If you have an electronic primary thermostat and wafer backup it is possible that the secondary is cutting it off before it gets up to temperature.