Yes, before we got the vibration under control we had a few spikes that were up to like 106! For a still air incubator, 102 is actually closer to where you want it. Since there isn't a fan to move the air around, you want the temperature on the top of the eggs to read a little higher than the usually recommended 99.5 because the temperature at the bottom of the eggs is several degrees cooler. If you measure the temp at the top of the eggs (by setting the thermometer on top of them) then it usually takes an extra day or two for them to hatch since the overall temperature of the egg was a little cooler than ideal.
For humidity you'll want to get a separate hygrometer to monitor humidity. Lots of people have had good luck finding them at Walmart, but I had a terribly hard time finding them. What I ended up getting was a (overly) large outdoor thermometer/hygrometer combo. Bill Gilberts, the breeder I get my buckeye eggs from, recommends filling one of the reservoirs for days 1-17 and then filling the second one for the last 3 days. Personally, I find that even with both reservoirs filled my humidity is too low for lock down, so I add sponges soaked in water underneath the mesh to up the humidity. This hatch, we're also considering putting a humidifier in the room so that the ambient humidity in the room isn't so low, but we'll have to see how necessary it is. The last hatch we couldn't get the humidity to stay above 50-60% consistently, but it was also in the dead of winter so it may have just been that the air was too dry.
Bob also recommends rotating the eggs if you are using a still air incubator to increase development and hatch rate by avoiding or minimizing a few eggs spending the entire three weeks in a hot spot. This has worked for us, each night we rotate the eggs one space before we go to bed. We had decent enough hatch rates in the still air without doing this, but it makes sense to me so we have started doing it ever since he suggested it.
For humidity you'll want to get a separate hygrometer to monitor humidity. Lots of people have had good luck finding them at Walmart, but I had a terribly hard time finding them. What I ended up getting was a (overly) large outdoor thermometer/hygrometer combo. Bill Gilberts, the breeder I get my buckeye eggs from, recommends filling one of the reservoirs for days 1-17 and then filling the second one for the last 3 days. Personally, I find that even with both reservoirs filled my humidity is too low for lock down, so I add sponges soaked in water underneath the mesh to up the humidity. This hatch, we're also considering putting a humidifier in the room so that the ambient humidity in the room isn't so low, but we'll have to see how necessary it is. The last hatch we couldn't get the humidity to stay above 50-60% consistently, but it was also in the dead of winter so it may have just been that the air was too dry.
Bob also recommends rotating the eggs if you are using a still air incubator to increase development and hatch rate by avoiding or minimizing a few eggs spending the entire three weeks in a hot spot. This has worked for us, each night we rotate the eggs one space before we go to bed. We had decent enough hatch rates in the still air without doing this, but it makes sense to me so we have started doing it ever since he suggested it.
