I have been trying to get my humidity up without much luck. We are in lockdown and day 28 is tomorrow. (If you count the day they were set as day 0.) I have a Brinsea Octagon 20 and so far it has been great, however it is not letting me get humidity very high for very long. I tried putting a paper towel half in the water and that helped and I tried misting which helped in the immediate but eventually it went back down. I am running right about 65-70% now and I hate to quit misting them (even though the temp goes back up in seconds) because I feel like there is just too much fluctuation for them. Any ideas? Will they still hatch okay? They were rocking pretty steadily last Thursday and Friday and there was still some rocking yesterday but not much today. Any thoughts/advice would be great. This is my first duck hatch.
I have an LG still air incubator and recently hatched 3/3 ducks in it. Before lockdown I had the water rings dull, and during lockdown I put in a soaked hand towel rolled up along the edge. Every day I added a little more water through one of the vent holes. The water ran right down onto the towel and some into the humidity rings. Good luck! Edit to add: this was also my first hatch. My eggs were rocking on day 28, but then there was nothing until day 31 when one started peeping. Two days later they all hatched one after another within a couple of hours. So you never know!
I filled a butter cup of water and hung a face cloth over the side and put it under the air vent so I could top up if need be. I use warm water and have had no probs this time with my humidity
Do stop misting--opening and closing the incubator will do much more harm to your humidity than good. Your best bet is to get something in there with a lot of surface area. Paper towels are okay, but better yet is a terry towel or washcloth, with large terry weave--the more surface area, the better it evaporates, the higher your humidity. Sponges are good too, especially a nice large one with large holes. Also, a cardboard egg carton with the cups filled with water can absorb & evaporate a large quantity of water, although I've noticed lately that a lot of the egg cartons have some sort of a coating that makes them less absorbent. You'll also need to fashion some way of refilling the water containers without opening and closing. I use a plain old water bottle with a piece of aquarium tubing hot glued through the lid. I fill it with water, screw the lid on tight, slither the tubing through a vent hole into a water container, and then squeeze the water bottle to push the water through the tubing and into the incubator. Good luck with your hatch! Very exciting!
Thank you for all the help. It is too late for me to put a towel in there as they have pipped. I am trying to mist through the vent hole to help boost the humidity. I have one out and he had a pretty clean break, so humidity must be okay. 7 more have pipped and one I can't tell if it has because the duckling that is out keeps rolling it around haha.
