Little giant incubators help

[cecornwe]

I just bought a little giant incubator and am having problems with them. I have the automatic turner and they have been on that since day one, my temp looks ok but humidify has fluctuated, I have one egg (18 days) that I've candeled that appears to be far from developed and a lot of them look similar. I'm curious what it is I can do and if this egg has any chance of hatching in the next three day, thanks.

Sorry it will not allow me to post pictures

 

[Silkie-Feet]

Humidity has limited impact on chick development, rather it impacts air cell development and hatching. For your eggs to be developing at a slower pace than normal your temperature must be off, by at least 1-2 degrees. If you haven't already, I would recommend getting an accurate incubator thermometer to measure the temperature in the incubator - I use a Brinsea Spot check and love it. 18 days in, there's nothing you can do other than hope for a good hatch. Any damage at this point has already occurred and cannot be reversed. For us to be able to better give advice there's a few things we need to know:

What model is your Little giant? Digital or manual controls?
Does your incubator have a fan kit?
Lastly, if you are unable to post pictures than please search something along the lines of "egg candling progression" on Google and let me know what day the eggs most look like. At day 18 the eggs should appear black with only the egg cell visible.

Side note: Day 18 is when most hatchers remove their turners and increase humidity to around 75% for hatch.

 

[cecornwe]

Ok thanks my incubator is 9200 with the fan and digital controls, I will definetly look into another thermometer, should I trust the humidity reading on my digital?
http://www.homegrowngourmet.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/candling_chicken_egg_day_8.jpg

And mine looks like this minus the blood vessels

 

[feedman77]

If you have digital controls and fan from the factory. You probably have the 10300.

At least with mine I had to set the temp at 103 to get close to correct temp in the incubator.

The humidity indicator on it is not close. Stays at 50 whether I put water in it or leave it dry. So would not trust it.

I have a roofing hatchet and 2 30ft tape measures setting on the lid to keep it pressed down to try and seal as it is a little loose fitting where the handles are.

These are a few issues I have found with the lg I have.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

If you have digital controls and fan from the factory. You probably have the 10300.

At least with mine I had to set the temp at 103 to get close to correct temp in the incubator.

The humidity indicator on it is not close. Stays at 50 whether I put water in it or leave it dry. So would not trust it.

I have a roofing hatchet and 2 30ft tape measures setting on the lid to keep it pressed down to try and seal as it is a little loose fitting where the handles are.

These are a few issues I have found with the lg I have.

xs 2 if it is digital, it's not the 9200 unless you updated it. It would most likely be the 9300 or 10300 and you absolutely can NOT go by the digital read outs on those. Almost everyone I know has to set the temps at least 3 degrees higher to maintain the proper temps inside. And humidity? I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it.

I use the 9200, even though it is an older model, much better than the digitals.

If the development looks behind they may hatch, but be dealyed a couple days. I'd check the air cells and see if they are anywhere close to where they need to be. IF they are small I would run dry until the first pip to increase the size and I would hatch them upright in cartons instead of laying them down. I'm thinking if anything hatches it'll be a couple days late especially if you were going by the readout on the bator. Here's a graph to compare to for air cell development:

 

[BertandMary]

We had moisture condensing on the windows of our 9300 and the humidity reading was around 45. Do not trust the digital. We also has to run with the unit set higher for temperature to get where we needed to be.

 

[cecornwe]

Ok is there an acurate humidity gauge that they recommend.

 

[BertandMary]

We bought one for a reptile tank and calibrated doing the salt water baggie test. You are on day 19 I believe so it's too late to do much other than add a sponge or bowl of water.