Nurture Right 360 incubator is reading 82% humidity and its hatch day! HELP

[RexDaRooster]

Have about a dozen silkie eggs I’ve been incubating in my nurture right 360 and I’ve been struggling to keep the humidity in check! Instructions manual says shoot for 70-75%. I’ve pulled the red plug and kept both chambers filled with water since day 18 but the humidity keeps spiking super high. I’ve tried removing the lid to clear out the humidity but it keeps hovering around 82% and idk what to do! I have the top vent open as far as it will go! This has never happened before with this incubator!!!!

Should I try to suck out some of the water? I have one egg that has externally piped so I can’t remove the lid anymore! Today is hatch day! HELP

 

[pac]

Watching. As I'm playing with my humidity, too as y'all know. But it's early on for me.

OP, I'm new to this, so all I can offer is; I'm assuming the vent is wide open like it should be at lockdown?
And my 360's display reads 8-10% higher than the Govee in it.
If mine read 82% I would actually be in the range you mentioned.

 

[coach723]

What I do is take a post it note and fold it up lengthwise first and then into a small square. Then I stick it under the edge on one side, where it's easy to get to, fiddle with it til it's stable and won't fall out or in. It will make a very, very small gap, the lid should still seat well enough around the rest of the edges for it to be stable. Then let the humidity stabilize again. Then play with how many layers it takes to maintain the humidity you want, you may need less thickness and need to unfold a fold or two to make it thinner. I'm assuming you calibrated with a separate hygrometer to make sure it's reading correctly to start with? My incubator is pretty accurate, has been from the beginning. This has worked for me. Be aware that your humidity will spike for a short period when one hatches and that moisture from the egg is released into the incubator, don't worry about it then, it will be ok. I don't open during hatch to prevent shrink wrapping any hatching in progress. I live in Florida and high ambient humidity here can play havoc with my humidity levels, so it's a constant thing for me. I hatched 9 days ago and had to have the paper wedge for most of the incubation to keep it correct.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Instructions manual says shoot for 70-75%.

I read this as a guideline, not law of nature. 82% isn't that far off from 75% so I'd tend to not worry too much.

This has never happened before with this incubator!!!!

There is a reason it is happening. Do you have any idea what it might be? That could be something about the incubator itself, the water you added, or the background humidity in the room.

Should I try to suck out some of the water?

The volume of water does not matter to the humidity, volume determines how long it takes for that water reservoir to run dry. What counts is surface area. Sucking water out won't reduce the humidity unless it also reduces the water surface area.

One common cause of a spike after adding water is spilling water and getting something else wet. That adds to the wet surface area. I do that occasionally. My humidity spikes until that spilled water dries up. That's what I mean about the water you added above.

You are not there yet but once the hatch starts my humidity can jump for 65% to 85% from all of the moisture released by them hatching. Those chicks need to dry off and the shells can be damp. Be prepared to see that. I do not consider that to be a problem.

During the first part of incubation the humidity is about the eggs losing enough humidity for them to hatch. Your hatch has started, you are not going to significantly alter that now. Your moisture loss is here it is going to be. During hatch the higher humidity is about stopping shrink wrap. 82% should work well. I just would not be that excited about it.

The more you fiddle with it, the bigger the chance you drop the humidity too low and cause shrink wrap. I think it is time to wait and see what happens. But I would want to know why it jumped up like this.

 

[C Siena]

Have about a dozen silkie eggs I’ve been incubating in my nurture right 360 and I’ve been struggling to keep the humidity in check! Instructions manual says shoot for 70-75%. I’ve pulled the red plug and kept both chambers filled with water since day 18 but the humidity keeps spiking super high. I’ve tried removing the lid to clear out the humidity but it keeps hovering around 82% and idk what to do! I have the top vent open as far as it will go! This has never happened before with this incubator!!!!

Should I try to suck out some of the water? I have one egg that has externally piped so I can’t remove the lid anymore! Today is hatch day! HELP

Greetings, what were the hatch results?

We also have a NR360 day 18.5. The humidity was 73% with both chambers filled but 79% at 5:30am. I slipped the Govee in, waited a half hour and it read 75%. I have recently removed water from B chamber, with paper towel soaking it and now waiting for the water in B to dry up to check %. Govee has consistently registered 5% lower since day 0.

 

[Georgeie]

Watching. As I'm playing with my humidity, too as y'all know. But it's early on for me.

OP, I'm new to this, so all I can offer is; I'm assuming the vent is wide open like it should be at lockdown?
And my 360's display reads 8-10% higher than the Govee in it.
If mine read 82% I would actually be in the range you mentioned.

So you go by the Govee for humidity?
What about temp?

I tested out two Govee's for a week prior to incubation and they read within 1/10th of a degree sitting side by side on my desk. The humidity agreed as well.

Then I stick them in the incubator and they have different readings.

Did I go to far? Should I just use one so I don't even notice? ugh.

 

[pac]

So you go by the Govee for humidity?
What about temp?

Yes. The Govee seems to have quite a following for its accuracy. So who am I to question.

 

[Bibby]

Have about a dozen silkie eggs I’ve been incubating in my nurture right 360 and I’ve been struggling to keep the humidity in check! Instructions manual says shoot for 70-75%. I’ve pulled the red plug and kept both chambers filled with water since day 18 but the humidity keeps spiking super high. I’ve tried removing the lid to clear out the humidity but it keeps hovering around 82% and idk what to do! I have the top vent open as far as it will go! This has never happened before with this incubator!!!!

Should I try to suck out some of the water? I have one egg that has externally piped so I can’t remove the lid anymore! Today is hatch day! HELP

I am having the exact same problem…. I have used this incubator since 2020and everything has been fine. I added ice chips when need water but it keeps spiking up to 90-98. Filled with cool water when needed vent is completely open. Lifted lid many time to lower. I know I shouldn’t because it is lockdown but I can’t stand it My students will be so disappointed.

 

[SamLockwood]

It could be the instrumentation is off in the incubator itself. I use a govee thermometer / hygrometer to monitor the temp & humidity, plus it has the bonus of recording long-term trends (like the average temp & humidity over 24 hours).

I've noticed that the humidity readings can be as much as 15% off, and I've seen the temperature readouts be as much as 5 degrees off. The thermostat itself seems pretty accurate, they'll fluctuate up or down about a half-degree up or down as the heater turns on and off, but you can get the average temp to stay where it needs to be.

They're not quite as super-sensitive as you'd think. Case in point I went down to my incubator this morning to put the latest batch in lockdown, and was greeted by four little pairs of eyes staring at me from among the egg-trays, plus two more that were about 80% out. My normal humidity pre-lockdown is 45%, and I'll look at the saved data and see what the humidity spiked to when they hatched last night.

 

[Chad Oftedal]

For my hatch, I took all my readings off of my SensorPush monitor that I had put in the incubator. What I noticed was that the NR360 temp reading was about 1.5 degrees low throughout the 21 days, and the humidity reading was about 5-10% off during days 1-18. At lockdown, the reading was surprisingly close to my SensorPush reading. The humidity does spike pretty good when a chick pops out and then fairly quickly goes back down to lockdown humidity level. I agree with others, I woundn't sweat 82% vs 75% especially if going off of the NR360 readings. I'm big on data readings and watching the "science" side of it, but, for me, in lockdown, "less was more" by just rolling with it and all but one that made it into lockdown hatched.