LG Humidity disaster!! Hydrometers fault!

[LilDucky85]

For 14 days my Little Giant has held a consistent 99-100 degrees. Then Tuesday it went up to 101 degrees all day, and then yesterday a consistent 102 degrees! I didn't want to mess with the knob but had no other choice. I regulated the temp to 99-100 but had to check it every two hours to make sure it wasn't spiking too high. Now I know why this was happening!!

A few minutes ago while turning the eggs I decided to reset the memory on my thermometer-hydrometer. When I reset the humidity I realized it was stuck on the high memory reading! When I pressed reset it was at 21% only! I'm incubating duck eggs, and need at least 80%. For the past few days I've wondered why no matter how much I misted the eggs the humidity wouldn't change! Since the humidity has read 85% for about a week now I didn't think to even check the water rings, cups, or washcloths I added to the bottom of the bator. When I checked the water rings were very low, and the cups were empty. I panicked and immediately filled everything. Luckily I've been misting the eggs regularly or they might have not made it through this. I checked everyone and all are alive!

The thermo-hydrometer has been great up to this point so I guess its not the hydrometers fault. I wish it didn't have that stupid memory setting!! This happened once with the temperature but that I found very quickly. Ill take this as a lesson learned....always check the water levels no matter what!!

 

[BirdBrain]

Glad you realized what was going on. Hope you have a good hatch.

 

[LilDucky85]

Thank you!! Everything is back to normal. Yay!

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

Sytrofoam incubators can run out of water in a skinny minute. You should make it a habit to check your water trays every day, but more importantly ever time you check the eggs or have to take the top off. You're in there anyway, might was well check everything - eggs, temps, water level, working turner/fan, etc...

 

[LilDucky85]

I know I was, but then the humidity read 85% so I was thinking everything was just perfect. I did wonder why the humidity didnt rise after misting the eggs but figured Id trust the reading. Well, now I learned three lessons:
1. Always check the water level no matter what.
2. Always check to make sure the memory is off the device!!
3. When the temp begins to change for no reason check the water!

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

I have a digital hydrometer to with the memory feature, and I've also made it a habit to clear the memory each time I check eggs or even pass by the incubator.

 

[LilDucky85]

Its so frustrating! On day 1 or 2 I didnt realize there even was a memory on the thing. It was reading 99 degrees but then I looked closer and it said "High Mem" I turned it off and the temp was only at 96! I quickly fixed it and learned from this. You think Id check the humidity memory since it works the same way.