mosture in the first days of incubation

[jeggen5]

I must have had too much water in the incubator for the first 4 days. My eggs have lost no weight. Should i take water out for a day?
Thank you for your help!

 

[Quyen Le]

You should

 

[Paulajon]

Hi , are you hatching chickens ? if so i keep my humidity at around forty percent, till lockdown.Does your incubator have any vents that you can open to regulate it ? sometimes you need to take water out and get it stablized and then add when needed. Good Luck.

 

[Arielle]

I don't know what model you are using, but I tend to use the dry hatch method. In both my homemade and my LG. ONly rarely do I need to add water. I start without any water and depend on ambient moisture levels. I hatch about 100 chicks last summer this way.

Monitoring like you are is the best way to decide if you need to increase or decrease the moisture levels.
Good luck.

Edited to add-- I monitor the moisture level inside the incubator AND monitor the air cell size.

 

[3forfree]

Arielle, I just did a dry hatch with an LG and really enjoyed not having to worry about the humidity until lockdown. My humidity stayed between 26-30, dipping to 25 on 2 different days when I added a tablespoon of water and the humidity went back up to 30. At lockdown I soaked paper towels and put them in the water channels. The humidity went up to 71 at the highest and tapered off as the days went by and was still at 60 on day 25 when I unplugged it with 11 eggs still inside.I hatched out 11, and still have 9 in the brooder.

 

[Arielle]

Nice job! Was this your first try??

Many factors effect hatching rates. Keep notes and use them to figure out what works best. Good job on the hatch.

 

[ebenavides5]

are you keeping it at 50 percent or how much humidity?

 

[jeggen5]

Thank you all all so much. I have taken just about all water out. The model I am using is just a small 7 egg holder called a "mini Brinsea advanced ". I didn't realize that I would want to hatch more now I have chicken fever I guess... I weighed yesterday and two of the reeves dropped a couple of grams I'm praying they are all ok. I will keep watching and weighing. I'm on day 13 now. Leaving 12 to go.

 

[Arielle]

Good luck the remaining 12 days.Yes, hatching is addictive.