ooh my humidity is at 78%!

[Kelsey2017]

It seems bad, how could it go up so high when I have been opening the 'bator? I will open the vent hole and check in a minute. The relative humidity is higher today so it is easier to get it up there I guess.

 

[h4ppy-chris]

how many days are you at?

 

[Kelsey2017]

I am mid hatch they started yesterday around 11 am and I have four so far and a few with external pips. I had to open the incubator to help a chick that was tangled in some strands of fleece, so I took super hot tap water and poured about a cup in the water dish. Maybe it will level out, but before I was having trouble keeping it above 68%. It is a very damp rainy day today. I just really don't want to drown my pips.

 

[cmom]

The outside humidity will affect the incubator. My humidity shot up to 70% in my incubator. I have all of the vents wide open and the humidity is now running around 45%. I am doing staggered hatches. I do incubate in a cabinet incubator and when the eggs are ready for lock down I pull the eggs out of the incubator that are going into lockdown and put them into a hatcher. I just had a hatch over the weekend and the weather was rainy to the humidity was running high but the hatch was still good. I have another hatch next Tuesday so Saturday those eggs will come out of the incubator and go into a hatcher. I don't worry about the humidity if it is around 65% to 70%. during lockdown.

 

[Gypsy07]

Don't worry, a high lockdown humidity won't drown your chicks. I've had mine get as high as 90% on a few occasions, with no harm done...

What drowns chicks is when your humidity has been too high the whole way through the incubation. The eggs don't lose enough moisture and have fluid inside them that should have evaporated. The chicks make it as far as lockdown, cause it's not so much of a problem up till then, but once they break into the air cell and start breathing air, they drown in the excess fluid. because it happens during lockdown, folk get confused and blame the lockdown humidity, but that's not what's caused the problem...

I usually run my lockdowns at 70-75%, but if the humidity goes higher, I just leave it...

 

[Kelsey2017]

Thanks for the reassurance. I will have a few eggs that may hatch a little later (couldn't resist popping a couple more eggs in) than the rest but my humidity was low the whole rest of the time. I do have the vent open now but I will close it once I am more around 75%. It did drop a touch after I opened the vent.