Little Giant humidity help

Starshollow

Chirping
Apr 22, 2023
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I am doing my first hatch with a little giant 12300. (Yes I have since read the reviews and will be looking for a better incubator in the future).
My issue is the humidity.
I had initially read minimum 60% humidity the day I was picking my eggs up so I panicked and put a bunch of water in bc it was at 54%. I put the eggs in Friday night so we are on day 2 with high humidity.

Since then I have done more reading that it should be lower.....I can't get it lower to save my life.....I have dumped water out 2x before this am.

This morning it was at 64% I dumped all the water out and now it is up to 70%.
The seperate hygrometer says 74%.

I have moved it from my bathroom to my kitchen in hopes of "drying it out" I have put a towel under it to help with temperature flucations from the counter temperature.

I plan to get a small desk fan to put inside later today.

Any other suggestions....
 
suggestion, quit worryimg about it .. id say anywhere from 40-80 in your house makes little difference to anything if you checked it .. same in an incubator .. the main idea is you dont want to suck all the moisture out of the eggs, that takes time .. so keep it in the midrange and it will work out golden ... as far as setting it perfect, you can work towards that as a rule, but also realize adding 'cold' water will take quite awhile to heat up and stabilize both in temp and humidity and you should avoid playing with it too much, when it starts to dry, 40 maybe, then add WARM water ..being perfect witj humidity just isnt critical .. messing up the temp playing with humidity is ..
 
I am doing my first hatch with a little giant 12300. (Yes I have since read the reviews and will be looking for a better incubator in the future).
My issue is the humidity.
I had initially read minimum 60% humidity the day I was picking my eggs up so I panicked and put a bunch of water in bc it was at 54%. I put the eggs in Friday night so we are on day 2 with high humidity.

Since then I have done more reading that it should be lower.....I can't get it lower to save my life.....I have dumped water out 2x before this am.

This morning it was at 64% I dumped all the water out and now it is up to 70%.
The seperate hygrometer says 74%.

I have moved it from my bathroom to my kitchen in hopes of "drying it out" I have put a towel under it to help with temperature flucations from the counter temperature.

I plan to get a small desk fan to put inside later today.

Any other suggestions....
Little giant readers are not accurate
Don’t go by the humidity on it
To get 45% I hardly put any water in one Chanel
I go pick up small reptile hygrometers and use double sided tape so it can sit on the Turner they way I can watch it without opening the lid
Calibrate the hygrometer first
Take a bottle cap add salt to the top
Then add 1/3 bottle cap of water enough to dampen the salt but not dissolve it
But both in an air tight container
I use freezer bag and place something inside to prop it up so the bag doesn’t smother the cap of salt
Leave it for 24 hours
One was dead on accurate my last one was off by 5
It should read 75%
So if it says 70 then if you want 60 it will read 55
Also never add warm water to them
It will spike the temp
Just use room temp
Edit to add
I use them for my hatches and get 100 -% hatch rates
You just have to learn how to use them
I don’t keep my plugs in ever
I throw them away
 
This is the ones I use in my little giants
 

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The way that incubator is supposed to control humidity is that it has 6 water reservoirs of different sizes. You fill different reservoirs to get different humidities. The water depth in those reservoirs is not what is important, other than how fast they dry out from evaporation. It's the surface area that matters.

It can be hard to drop the humidity rapidly. If you pour water out the area is still wet so the surface area is still high. If you spill water somewhere in there when filling a reservoir the humidity will spike until that spilled water evaporates. I don't know what is going on with yours, it may be that you just need to give it time to stabilize. That has happened before on here.

The instructions with that say to not trust the hygrometer that comes with it. Your other one may not be any more accurate. Have you tried to calibrate it, see how accurate it is. Most of us don't but it can be a source of error.

Are those two red vent plugs in? Take them out. That should drop your humidity though it may take time for the humidity to stabilize. The temperature should be fine as long as it is working correctly. The way that works is the heater warms it up until it hits a certain temperature then it cycles off until it cools down to a set temperature. With those plugs out the heater just cycles quicker.

The instructions say to run it for 8 hours before you put eggs in it. I suggest several days instead. Try putting water in different reservoirs and keep track of what that does to humidity. That way you can control it better.

The purpose of controlling humidity during hatch is that the eggs need to lose a certain amount of moisture before hatch. The instantaneous humidity is not what is important, it's more the average humidity over the entire incubation. A spike is not a big deal, just run it a little low for a while to try to balance it out.

One humidity during incubation does not work for everyone. Some people do well at 55% humidity, others do well at 30%. After experimentation My sweet spot is around 40%. There are a lot of different factors that go into that but each of is are unique. At lockdown we increase the humidity to help reduce the chance of shrink wrapping the eggs. Again, there is not perfect consensus among us as to what is perfect. I generally go to 65% but don't worry if it is higher.

I don't know what is going on with yours but hopefully something in all this will help you. Good luck.
 

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