Keeping Humidity Right

[docmilligan]

I have one of the 9300 Little Giant Incubators (thew new model with the digital control). I've installed an old Video Card fan to circulate the air and it appears to be working fine. Keeping the temperature right hasn't been a problem but humidity is giving me a little challenge. I purchased an Incubator Warehouse Digital Temperature and Humidity gage and am finding the humidity seems to stay a bit high. I've been experimenting for the last few days...when I have most of the troughs in the incubator filled with water the humidity raises to around 80%...knowing this is too high I have cut down to just a little water in one or two of the troughs and find it runs anywhere from 45% to 60% with water in two...cut it back to a little water in one and it is a bit better...I've got another gage on the way so I can monitor at least two sides of my incubator.
Perhaps it is just because we generally have high humidity here in South Texas. Is there a good way to manage humidity?...it appears as though I am going to need to keep the amount of water in the incubator very low...perhaps I should use a small bowl with water to better manage it....don't really know since I new to this.
I still have a couple of days to get it right...have some peafowl eggs on the way...I have a pea hen...the male was killed by a bobcat a couple of months ago. I got her some fertile eggs to lay on but a snake has gotten a couple....I got the snake last night....the next batch of eggs are going in the incubator...last year she hatch out a couple and they were snake food within a couple of days!....this next batch will live the beginning of their lives in a raised pen....just tired of loosing birds!
Anyway...any advice anyone can give me on the humidity issue would be helpful...thanks!

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Try running your incubator completely dry and see where that puts you.

I usually don't add any water until day 18, but if I do have to add it, its a very small amount (like a tablespoon) and we'd by having very dry weather.

I keep my humidity somewhere around 25-35% the first 18 days then up it to around 60% at hatch time

 

[docmilligan]

Without any water it runs about 40 %....thought it had to be 50% to work....Have no problem getting it to 60% and keeping it there.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

When you're incubating eggs, they have to loose a certain amount of moisture for the chick to hatch successfully (11-13% of initial weight during the first 18 days, if you're weighing them to check progress). If they don't loose enough, the chicks drown when they pip into the air cell. Too much and they stick.
50% is likely what is suggested by your incubators instructions, same with mine. When I incubate at 50% humidity, I have a lot of chicks that pip and then don't hatch. Which tells me theres too much humidity.

You should Google or search here for dry incubation. I prefer to hatch dry, it gives me better results. But, if you'd like to try it at 50%, go for it. I would personally keep it a 40 if that's the lowest you can achieve, but they aren't my egglets

 

[Shaneb99]

You want the egg to lose about 12% of it's weight in moisture over the incubation period which for peafowl is 28 days. So the best way is to weigh the eggs every 7 days. I weigh the eggs at the start add up the total weight then and calculate what they should be at the end. I then draw a line on a graph. I weigh the eggs every week and plot where they are on the graph. If they are coming down to fast I raise the humidity, if they are high I lower it. It seems complicated but isn't. It's more work and fussing but with expensive eggs it is the best way to get consistent hatches.

 

[docmilligan]

I am so glad I posted...I hadn't ever heard of dry incubating but after doing some digging it seems to make sense. I am going to use this method...thanks everyone for your responses!