please help, humidity control !

[salahzantout]

Hey everyone

I have made my own homemade incubator, ive tested it and put eggs in it, the problem is humidity is staying at 60%, and i can not control it since this is the environment humidity nowadays, i did put pan with water with sponge at first and realized that its useless since humidity is not changing, now after i took it off the humidity is varying between 58 and 61

The eggs are on there first day

My question would be is it lethal that the chicks might not grow up or is the value accepted ?

Thank you in advance

 

[HEChicken]

First to your question: yes, it CAN be lethal to have humidity too high. At the perfect humidity, the air cell will grow big enough but not too big. If the humidity is too low or high, you can have a situation where the air cell doesn't grow big enough, so the chick will grow too big and then be unable to turn in the shell to pip and zip, OR, the air cell will take up too much space in the shell so the chick is unable to grow big enough. So yes, "optimum humidity" is the ideal. That said, there is a range that is optimum - it does not have to be a specific value.

Ok, now to the issue at hand. The first question I have for you is: have you calibrated your hygrometer? If you haven't, it is possible the humidity is where you want it but the gauge is not reading correctly and registering that it is higher than it actually is. So, the first thing I would do is calibrate it.

Second, do you have plenty of ventilation in the incubator? If not, create some! The chicks will need it when they are hatching because it is very hard work for them and they need a good supply of fresh, oxygenated air. And, during incubation, increased ventilation will allow for better humidity control.

 

[salahzantout]

hey there
first thanks alot for ur reply

second thing is that i have not calibrated my hygrometer, i will try that but i do not think it is because pf the hygrometer since the humidity outside is almost 56% ( this is where i live )

third is that is 60% accepted value ? knowing that humidity is to be kept between 50-55 as i have read from several sources

and concerning the ventilation, i think yes i have good ventilation, i ve made three pencil size holes at the top and several ones on the sides.

thanks again

 

[HEChicken]

60% is a little higher than I would aim for in the first 18 days. I set my Rcom at 45% (40-50% being the recommendation) and then bump it up to 65% for hatch.

Keep in mind that there is a relationship between temperature and humidity such that the humidity in your house, if your temperature is 50 degrees, will not be the same humidity if the temperature bumps up to 100. I.e., one goes up, the other goes down and vice versa. So the humidity in your incubator should not be the same as in your house, unless the temperature in your house is also 99.5-101 degrees.

The reason I mention ventilation is that it is usually not a priority and not really discussed much, such that I miscalculated its importance when I built my home-built. I had several frustrating attempts at incubation where the chicks would develop beautifully but then fail to hatch. It wasn't until I asked a mentor what I was doing wrong and told her everything I had done, that she suggested I add many more holes for ventilation. After doing that, my hatches went from 0% to 100% (incubating my own, not shipped, eggs). So I cannot stress enough the importance of ventilation.

Here are some pics of my home-built, where you can see the ventilation holes. At the top you can see 3 pencil sized holes and one cork-sized hole (at the time I thought I could use a cork to plug it if necessary but I've never found it to be necessary). At the bottom, 3 more pencil sized holes. The opposite end of the incubator has an equal number of holes. I have a fan running at the bottom, and the idea is that the fan draws in air through the bottom holes, and vents it out of the top ones.

 

[salahzantout]

thanks
very informative replies
lots of appreciations to you my friends

i managed to fix he humidity thing, but now i inserted the thermometer and found out that temperatures are different at both sides of the incubator, does not matter that much since my incubator is big enough that I only used one side, and hopefully it came to be the correct temperature side ( near the lamp). However I decided to install a fan. I hope I did not kill any embryos since ive opened the incubator about 12 times for 10 seconds each today !

I would like to know of you with good experience about the number of times you open the incubator and for how long ?

many thanks

 

[HEChicken]

Oh, I certainly would NOT worry about that. In real life, the hen gets off the eggs at least once a day to go and eat, drink and bathe. I've seen my hens leave the nest for 20 minutes and the chicks still hatched just fine. In fact, to try to simulate the hen as much as possible, I open the incubator every day at least once. With my home-built, I had to hand-turn, so I had it open 5 times each day for the time it took to turn each egg. I figure the air flow at that time can only be good for them, and even though the air temperature decreases rapidly when the lid is off, the internal temperature of the eggs does not decrease nearly so much - not enough to hurt them anyway.

Great idea on adding the fan - I think it makes a huge difference, both to equalize the temperature throughout the incubator, and to draw in fresh air.

 

[salahzantout]

actually the fan ditributes the heat to give equal constant temperature though out the sides and corners of the incubator, also stabilizes the temperature, my lamp on-off cycle used to be around 2 minutes but now its way more than this, not to forget that temperature is more stable.

thanks alot for the quick and informative answers
gratitude

 

[salahzantout]

Im a little bit worried, is it OK that the fan air flow hits some eggs ? but ofcourse the temp and humidity inside is within adequate range (99-102 and 55 %)

 

[HEChicken]

Im a little bit worried, is it OK that the fan air flow hits some eggs ? but ofcourse the temp and humidity inside is within adequate range (99-102 and 55 %)

It won't hurt a thing during incubation but could dry out the membrane, causing them to shrink wrap, while they are hatching. Do you have pics of your set up? I'll show some pics of mine for reference, since I don't have this issue. If you can move the fan down to under the eggs, it might work better for you.

This is looking into the cooler. My heat source is a reptile heat mat. The fan sits on that. There is a large hole in the corner next to the fan and the electric cords for both the heat mat and the fan run out through the hole.


Next I place bowls so I can add water for humidity. At the dollar store I found these little baskets that invert and fit perfectly over the bowls. These both prevent a chick from falling in and drowning, and provide support for a hardware cloth platform.


On top of the hardware cloth platform, is a piece of rubberized shelf liner. This provides a soft place for the eggs to incubate, and the chicks are able to grip it while learning to walk, so they don't slip and slide all over the place. It is woven loosely enough that the heat and humidity rise through it, but it prevents the fan from blowing directly on the eggs.