No humidity....?

[Talavar]

Do you have pics of your incubator?

My wife has the camera, when she gets back, I'll take a picture. Fair warning, it's nothing to look at. I built it out of some old foamboard insulation that I had lying around.. lol

 

[Ruby Rogue]

My wife has the camera, when she gets back, I'll take a picture. Fair warning, it's nothing to look at. I built it out of some old foamboard insulation that I had lying around.. lol

Okay.

What else did you use? And what were your other incubating conditions? What's the temp in the room you incubated in?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I don't know about the humidity though.. As I said, the air in here is really dry. Doesn't make sense.. but it's working! lol

I can break it down for you.. basically.. at least what I've assessed at MY location.

My place ambient humidity is usually 65% indoors with the heater running when it's 99% outside. So reduced by about 30%, respectively.

The humidity in my bator COMPLETELY dry is usually 30-35%.. so also reduced another 30% ish by the heat.. During the "dry" season here, I have gotten my bator as low as 17% using Marans eggs and had successful hatches.

With variations for how many eggs are in there losing moisture, blah blah and all the over thinking that can go into it.

I have seen another person post exactly the same thing.. they don't use water, they add new eggs every DAY and remove quitters and NEVER adjust humidity! Doesn't sound like you have anything to dial in.. are you also hatching on day 21.. and what breed(s), what feed, etc.. do tell, and certainly add your incubator build to that section of BYC when you get a chance!

 

[Talavar]

Okay.

What else did you use? And what were your other incubating conditions? What's the temp in the room you incubated in?

All measurements are in inches..
36 wide, 12 deep, 18 long.
there is a divider 6 inches from the back, with holes cut which I split a desk fan, and mounted the blades facing back and the face on the other side, as you can see in the picture I'll post. I set it to low, and it runs all the time. In the back of the box I bored 2 holes and put a 60 watt utility light in each plugged into a power strip which I wired to an inkbird thermostat, which can be found here.. https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Temp...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=060DWZ7J1SPJCHDJDSBT

I cut a hole in the top left at a diagonal angle to put water inside, which I abandoned rather quickly after accidentally getting one of my egg cartons wet and finding that the wet eggs hatch times were delayed by 36 hours, and one of them not even hatching (the one I lost).
There's a 36x12 piece of glass on top that's from an old glass end table. I use it for a viewing window.
As for the temperature in the house, it fluctuates wildly, low as 60 at night, up to 95 during the day.. A coal furnace can't be controlled like oil furnaces, or gas. You cover the fire at night, and let it rest burning slowly, generating very little heat. then in the morning you poke it up, and heat your house rapidly to HOT so it heats the walls of your house, then let the fire cool.. then you just burn a small fire all day to maintain a livable heat. (Cant beat it for the price.. we heat a drafty 11 room house for 80$ a month).
You'll have to excuse the old matress laying in front of it.. this is also our storage room.. lol

 

[Talavar]

Okay.

What else did you use? And what were your other incubating conditions? What's the temp in the room you incubated in?

If you need something more in the lines of a schematic, I could do that for you as well. Just let me know if you need it.

 

[Ruby Rogue]

If you need something more in the lines of a schematic, I could do that for you as well. Just let me know if you need it.

I like it. I'm glad you made this thread.

I spent a lot of time trying to maintain humidity in my DIY incubator(s). Your experiment encourages others to experiment. Normally I wouldn't encourage that with little baby chicks lives on the line, but your hatch rate is better than mine was.

I'm tempted to try myself.

 

[Talavar]

I like it. I'm glad you made this thread.

I spent a lot of time trying to maintain humidity in my DIY incubator(s). Your experiment encourages others to experiment. Normally I wouldn't encourage that with little baby chicks lives on the line, but your hatch rate is better than mine was.

I'm tempted to try myself.

Keep in mind, all manual turning, twice per day. you have to open the box which simulates the chicken leaving the nest and the eggs cooling. Other than my mishap with spilling water on my first attempt (which is why I stopped adding water), all my dry hatches are on day 21 exactly. I use small seed planters to hold my eggs. (there's one in the picture). On day 18 I lay the eggs down on their sides (natural laying position on the flat incubator floor) and let them do their thing from that point on.

 

[Ruby Rogue]

Did you measure the humidity at all throughout incubation?

 

[Talavar]

Did you measure the humidity at all throughout incubation?

Not once, I have no way to do so. But like I said, the air in here is really dry. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Seemed to be fine without me monitoring it at all.
As for breed Im using, It's a crossbreed- Bard rock roo, and Rhode Island Red hens. They seem to be extremely sturdy, as I haven't had one sick/weak bird yet.

 

[Mellowmalt]

I will still advocate candling the eggs and checking the development of the air cell. I incubate at rughly 50% till lockdown and I check the development every 5 days to make sure I am on track. If I were to use 30% most my eggs would dry up before they hatch, now with big eggs this is not necessarily the end of the world, the chick might just be born a bit weaker.
The only reason I can see people wanting to do this is convenience as monitoring humidity and the progress of the eggs is more time consuming.

I keep hearing to avoid high humidity because it can make chicks drown which I think is bogus myself. If humidity is high a chick will be born wet. It's happened to me, the only downside is that a chick needs longer to dry off. I mean to actually drown in the shell you would have to flood the egg on pip day, like literally flood the egg, like if there was more fluid than chickmass by day 19 - and if that really is the case then yes you could argue the chick will drown but if the chick really is that underdeveloped by day 19 it will have nothing to do with humdity it will be because temps were off. Temps affect development. Humidity affects the transpiration of the eggs. So you can blame high humidity but that is not being a true detective.

So to me if there is no real reason to avoid a higher humidty (as long as you check the progress and adjust as needed) but there are lots of reasons to avoid low humidity, shrinkwrapping being the worst effect but weak chicks are also a high probability.

In this case I am glad that 49 out of 50 hatched which is a result to be very proud of. That really is impressive but egg health will play a part in this too.
The size of the egg matters too, I don't think the result would be the same with smaller eggs. So well done. a really good result and I would not say it was coincidental luck but I would not advertise it for all to copy either.