NY chicken lover!!!!

[JLaw]

Can someone please tell me how I raise the humidity in my incubator without raising the temperature of it? Its been reading at 45% humidity and 100 degrees. It'll go up in Humidity if I raise the temp but I obviously don't want to do that when it comes times to hatching eggs. I have a bowl of water in there and just added a sponge to the dish to see if that helps at all.

I don't know your bator set up but there is a few ways to raise it.

1. More water surface area. Water can only evaporate by the area that actually touches water. Yes raising temp can help because it will speed up the break down of the water. But a larger area will release more.
2. Close some vents. Make sure you have enough to let the chicks breath in and out of egg though.
3. Raise the humidity in the room you are incubateing in. If you can get a room that holds a steady temp/humidity you can adjust your bator easier.

So far in my house I have the bator in living room next to my desk. With no water added I hold a low 30's. That's with the ac window unit holding the room at around 70. I don't know the humidity in here though. That's with the big vent closed in top of my bator closed and only using the smaller one where the fan is. Today I wanted to up it some more so I added 4 tsp of water and it was jumping up to 50's so I took the vent out and now it flexes mid to high 40's for humidity. This is day 7/8 for me and i'm using a hova-bator genises 1588 with the 1611 auto turner. This is my first hatch so I've been reading a lot on it but those are the ways that I've seen and have read about.

Some people use a sponge to help make more surface area. Not sure if they lay it on top of the water using the sides of sponge as more surface area or if they set it on side up and down so water will wick up it and make more surface area. I also heard of people takeing damp/wet paper towls and draping them in the bator.

If none of this helps i'd try google its what I use for a lot of my questions then you get a lot of answers and can see what works for you.

jlaw

 

[Gramma Chick]

Quote: I was thinking they might need more calcium too ..more of that too in Egg Producer .
We bought some of that for our hens .
They are getting back to producing again ..starting to get 6 eggs daily from 8 hens .They did good on Purina Layena Too
I dont think our older / rescue hens had enough calcium when they started laying ...their shells are thinner
We started our younger hens on layer at about 4 1/2 ,months old . ( they laid at 5 months ) & they lay cast iron eggs
I have a theory : if you start layer before they need it ...they dont need to draw calcium from their body to get enough to lay ..

 

[Nuttyfrom6kids]

AWWW How Lovely

CONGRATS ...Is this your First ?

Yes that is my first and will have to take pictures tomorrow it has fluffed out so well and is so adorable

 

[Gramma Chick]

Quote:
COOL > I am glad the hatch went well for you ..
I am going to try again ..this week with a few ..maybe 6-9 ..
We got a new thermometer ..and we are going to put it in a room with no traffic ..

 

[Nuttyfrom6kids]

COOL > I am glad the hatch went well for you ..
I am going to try again ..this week with a few ..maybe 6-9 ..
We got a new thermometer ..and we are going to put it in a room with no traffic ..

Good Luck this has been so interesting

 

[Nuttyfrom6kids]

Number 5 is out which is another BLRW but this one I think came out a little early egg is still wet inside and it still has some yolk sac left will have to see if this one makes it .

 

[pharmchickrnmom]

Morning all. Woke up to two dead chicks and a dead hen. The hen was a red sexlink in the terrorist coop. Found her lying on the floor of the coop next to the feed bucket. No apparent cause of death. Was fine yesterday. The chicks were also fine yesterday. I examined the others. They are running around with momma. However, the splash hen in the coup is not looking good. She was fine yesterday but was hiding in a nest box this morning. I remember that someone else on this forum was having chickens drop dead for no reason and was having their birds looked at by cornell. Did you ever get an answer? My other hens in the terrorist coop seemed quite disturbed by their dead sister. No predators got in. I checked. I will isolate my silkie hen today. I am reluctant to give any kind of anitbiotic without knowing what the problem is. Everyone else looks fine. They are out and about doing chicken things. Ugh...I hate the not knowing part.

 

[featherz]

Morning all. Woke up to two dead chicks and a dead hen. The hen was a red sexlink in the terrorist coop. Found her lying on the floor of the coop next to the feed bucket. No apparent cause of death. Was fine yesterday. The chicks were also fine yesterday. I examined the others. They are running around with momma. However, the splash hen in the coup is not looking good. She was fine yesterday but was hiding in a nest box this morning. I remember that someone else on this forum was having chickens drop dead for no reason and was having their birds looked at by cornell. Did you ever get an answer? My other hens in the terrorist coop seemed quite disturbed by their dead sister. No predators got in. I checked. I will isolate my silkie hen today. I am reluctant to give any kind of anitbiotic without knowing what the problem is. Everyone else looks fine. They are out and about doing chicken things. Ugh...I hate the not knowing part.

Usually when I hear of sudden chicken death I think either a) Cocci (especially with our recent weather) or b) got into something they shouldn't. I am no expert, obviously!

 

[marquisella]

Can someone please tell me how I raise the humidity in my incubator without raising the temperature of it? Its been reading at 45% humidity and 100 degrees. It'll go up in Humidity if I raise the temp but I obviously don't want to do that when it comes times to hatching eggs. I have a bowl of water in there and just added a sponge to the dish to see if that helps at all.

To raise the humidity, you need to increase the water surface area. You could put the sponge in a different place and keep it wet. Keeping it in the water dish won't affect the humidity. Or place 2 bowls . Does the bottom of the incubator have wells for water? If it does, fill up all the wells and leave out the dish.

 

[AQHAchick22]

Quote:
Ouch, sorry for your loss I had a hen randomly drop dead a few weeks ago. The not knowing part really is the hardest. Could it have had something to do with the heat?