My humidity simply won't go down.

[Serenderpity]

Hi. I'm new. I've got some ringneck pheasant eggs to hatch, as well as three chicken eggs, and my incubator's humidity is stuck at around 70-75%. I've tried removing a bit of water from the channels, but so far not so good. I'd hoped to start them today but they're only a day old. They can wait another 24 hours. Right now I've got a bowl of dry rice and a bowl of salt in it the incubator trying to get some of that humidity out but so far no luck. I've never hatched any sorts of birds before and this is sort of a test run to see if this is something I really have the stomach for. I'm 99% sure I do, but there are doubting thomases in the house =)

So, anything I can do short of dumping all the water from the channels? Should I just go ahead and do that? I'm a bit at a loss and since too high humidity at the beginning can drown chicks (according to what I've read) I'm being cautious.

 

[jruhle]

I always dry run the bator without eggs for a day to tweak it. Last batch I hardly added any water and it was a good hatch! The dry hatching method works well for some. I'd take the water out and if the humidity gets really low add a little. Good luck!

 

[Serenderpity]

=) I dumped all the water out and we're down to about 57% humidity. So we're almost there. I think it'll be good to go shortly. Temp's been perfect for the past 28 hours.