Is it Possible to have " too much" Humidity? (INCUBATION)

[ChcknNurse]

Day 14
Im very close on this chart Ive been at about 47% for over a week. My bator is almost dry.It runs at about 38% dry in my closet.I will run 2 days dry and candle some more.
I can adjust my humidity with in a few points with the channel system.
Since most of the information here says 65% to 70% for hatch I plan on setting my hatcher at 65%

View attachment 1068350

You will likely see a pretty good drop in the next days. Then, while in lockdown (which many of us use this term loosely) it will make a decent drop again. So, if you are on target at 14, sounds good.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I find this line/mark helpful to see if there is a malpo, or a pip below the air cell. With horrible saddles in shipped eggs, I always need to have a good idea. Of course, draw down comes and it changes, so another mark...

I don't mark my draw down. I candle during hatch to keep track of internal pips so I can see if a pip is under the air cell.

The directions in my Hova bator to control humidity say.
fill a cell. The amount of water,the depth of water do not control humidity.
The surface area of water is how you control it.
Then it goes on to explain how to place aluminum foil over parts of the channel to reduce surface area of water. I found it works perfectly. No sponges no constant adjustments.
And if you fill your cell all the way up,the water last 3 or 4 days.

I absolutely positively abhor incubator manual's attempt to tell people how to regulate humidity. Any incubator. Those manuals are good for knowing your bator and how it works and that's it.

You can not say "fill well a for 17 days". It's ridiculous for these companies to not point out there are too many factors to put a blanket statement out there for humidity or how many wells to fill. I use the Hovabator 1583, basically a 1588 w/o digital controls. Humidity in your bator is strongly influenced by your relative humidity. Say three of us have identical incubators. All three of us fill one well. Now say I live in very humid Florida, with no water in my bator it holds 55-65% humidity, now with that well filled I am at 75% humidity, the outcome most likely is going to result in improper moisture loss, my air cells do not grow and my chicks drown at hatch because of the moisture in the egg. Now let's say you are habitating in Death Valley where it's so hot and dry that without any water your incubator is 6%. Now with the same amount of water you are reaching 16%. Chances are your eggs are going to loose too much moisture too fast. Higher risks of shrink wrapping, dehydrated/weak chicks. Now somewhere in the middle is somewhere in the ideal state that running dry would give them 20% and with the recommended amount of water is going to push it to the 30%ish range, which for many people is what works. Eggs are going to loose moisture at a decent rate, air cell grows chick hatch.
Now on top of all that are smaller variables such as shell quality/thickness and hatchers habits (which especially comes into play come hatch).
Many manuals and guides will throw out 50-60% as a guideline, and by all means if you can SUCCESSFULLY hatch at that high, by all means don't change, BUT for many many many people humidity that high leads to fully developed DIS chicks at hatch because they grew too big to turn, they drowned in the excess fluid. If you are hatching up over 45% and low hatch rates (under 85% lockdown to hatch-rates) with many fully formed DIS chicks and you don't look at your humidity, you are crazy. No matter what you run for humidity you need 1) a checked and accurate hygrometer (and remember, when someone tells you what "works" for them, you don't know how accurate their tools are.) 2) a way to monitor and check how your humidity is working for you so you know when and how to adjust. Monitoring air cells or weighing are two ways to do do that. I find this essential to the beginning hatcher to figure out what works for you personally.

When trying to reduce humidity, that is not effective (to fill a cell). To throw in a sponge will give a little humidity, but not as much as filling the cell (yes, due to surface area). Trying to maintain (fairly dry) was more tedious with 2 bantam eggs, versus My fuller bator. But all was well and I got the air cells where I wanted them. 2 little Showgirls hatched.
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I do add paper towels to assist with evaporation during lockdown and keep a shotglass with sponges in the corner for easy refill. If I have chicks zipping, I don't want to open the lid and get to the bottom to refill the channels. This works wonderfully. Plus I put felt on the floor, with slits to allow evaporation from beneath. I trail the paper towel over the channels up to the edge of the felt. It keeps the humidity as I want. If I need to lift the lid to assist one, I can increase the humidity in 30 seconds by dropping water thru the air vent onto the floor. Then I can grab the one I need without disrupting the others. It's so easy, really.

Love love love the show girl! So want!

My last batch (ended 6-7-17) I ran almost dry to dry at day 11 to 15. Then on 16 added very little hot tap water. Day 19 added 2 rolled up washcloths soaked in hot tap water.
35 eggs
25 hatched
6 roll over fatalities
4 no peep

The previous batch yielded 9 out of 40.
All gooey. Most drowned. Umbilical probs.
Total disaster.
I am not trusting factory LG meters no more.
Humidity control is a science obliviously.

No matter what incubator, thermometer or hygrometer one uses it should always be checked for accuracy. Bators as your Brinsea, Hovabator, R-Coms are much more reliable but they can get thrown off during shipping/transport or just over time. No one should ever trust a LG! Lol

 

[bald Rooster]

Evidently you are not reading my statement in its entirety .Or not understanding it.
The directions the manual gives works perfectly in a controlled environment such as a air conditioned home.
I will give a example of there explanation. if you took a cap off a water bottle and filled it and set in your bator and it was the only water in it. your humidity would reach x (I do not know what X is because I do not know all of your conditions)
The bottle cap would evaporate very fast and you would have to fill it to maintain your desired humidity.
If you had a tall shot glass with the same size hole as bottle cap and filled it and put it in your bator the humidity would be the same because the surface area of water would be the same.
It would take much longer for the tall shot glass to evaporate.
This is why the amount or depth of water does not control humidity . The surface area does.
And this is why you can fill your water cell and cover it with aluminum foil and only leaving a small surface area open and control your humidity.
I am not saying my eggs will hatch.
But I am saying there directions on controlling humidity works.

 

[bald Rooster]

My second Hova bator just arrived
I am going to go set it up and see how much surface area of water I need to reach 65% humidity in my new Hatcher

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Connie what are the last chicks? And what is the sux humidity meter. I bought one that connects to my phone and was rated well. I'm going to start it this week.
So adorable!!!

Moulted Java, Barred Rock and leghorn x's with various tyes of roos.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I looked at the Cooler bator threads posted and this helped me decide to buy a second Hova bator.The first reason Is I do not need a huge cooler full of eggs twenty to 40 eggs will be more then I need.
My second reason was you need all the main parts in the Hova bator to build your own anyway.
I see no reason I can't dissemble my styro Hova and use the heater and thermostat in a different box if the box get's torn up.

I saved these from going into the trash at our local feed store this morning. They are heavy duty Styrofoam shipping containers use to ship cold vaccinations and cold medical supplies. They were pack with fragile glass bottles and dry ice delivered to the feed store. A clerk was going to trash them. Asked him and he gave them to me. Cool beans!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

This is how to lower your humidity in a LG 9300 incubator. Just add water and it will drain out slowly and rot your table in your incubator room!

Found the stinky mess a little earlier cleaning up the bator and getting ready to set more eggs.
The leaks got pretty bad. I have a pan under it now.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Evidently you are not reading my statement in its entirety .Or not understanding it.
The directions the manual gives works perfectly in a controlled environment such as a air conditioned home.
I will give a example of there explanation. if you took a cap off a water bottle and filled it and set in your bator and it was the only water in it. your humidity would reach x (I do not know what X is because I do not know all of your conditions)
The bottle cap would evaporate very fast and you would have to fill it to maintain your desired humidity.
If you had a tall shot glass with the same size hole as bottle cap and filled it and put it in your bator the humidity would be the same because the surface area of water would be the same.
It would take much longer for the tall shot glass to evaporate.
This is why the amount or depth of water does not control humidity . The surface area does.
And this is why you can fill your water cell and cover it with aluminum foil and only leaving a small surface area open and control your humidity.
I am not saying my eggs will hatch.
But I am saying there directions on controlling humidity works.

I understand humidity perfectly well, I was not addressing how to control humidity within the bator. I was talking about controlling humidity based on the needs of your eggs and how inappropriate it is to use a blanket statement to how much humidity to use or how much water to add without knowing the effects that level is going to have in your environment. Controlling the surface area of water to control humidity is a basic concept. That is humidity in a nut shell, but knowing what your needs are to hatch successfully is totally separate and differs which is where this info goes awry. How do you know if you need to decrease surface area if you don't know what humidity works for you? Many blindly follow humidity recommendations with not understanding why we control humidity, what it effects and how to monitor it to know how/when to adjust.
Personally, I think using water wells for the incubation period is more of a headache. A wet sponge is so much easier to use to control it. No pulling everything out to mess with water wells or covering them.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

I saved these from going into the trash at our local feed store this morning. They are heavy duty Styrofoam shipping containers use to ship cold vaccinations and cold medical supplies. They were pack with fragile glass bottles and dry ice delivered to the feed store. A clerk was going to trash them. Asked him and he gave them to me. Cool beans!View attachment 1069014

I got a couple of these from our vet. They are nice and thick.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I got a couple of these from our vet. They are nice and thick.

The beads of the Styrofoam shipping containers are so small and condensed. Thick and study. The beads in my LGs are much bigger and less compacted. Thus why my LG is leaking.