Please help me! I'm stressing out!

[Billsley]

Hi again,

I'm still very confused and stressed out, I can not seem to stabilize the humidity in the incubator, and currently have it at 28% with no water is this OK or do I need to find another way of getting up humidity.

Also I,m still stuck on the correct temp, the incubator is set at 37.6°C and my thermometer is displaying 34.8°C which do I trust (I cant calibrate the thermometer as its a non wand digital one with humidity meter).

Please please please I'm going out my mind.

Brian

Going to candle on day 4 to see if there is development as advised.

 

[Kiraeh]

28% humidity is fine, just track your air cell growth. Lots of people do a dry hatch in that range and it works great for them. But you do need to be able to raise it for lockdown. Have you messed around with combinations of sponges/dishes/ect to see what you can get?

What kind of incubator are you using? Someone with experience with that model(or even if it's DIY) may have better advice.

For temperature, is it a still or forced air incubator? Does the thermometer show different temperatures if you move it around? It's possible that both are correct and your thermometer is in a cooler spot, this can happen with either type.
Finding a third thermometer, preferably one you can calibrate as a tie breaker, is your best bet. If your incubator is a cheap one, you may be safer assuming it's wrong. If you have an incubator that's generally considered reliable(eg a Brinsea), I'd go with the incubator.
I don't know if there are ways of verifying a non-wand thermometer. I'd probably see if my fridge or freezer say what temperature they're set to and compare to those, or compare to my nearest weather station over the course of a few days. Do a salt test- it's at least an indication of the build quality of the unit, even if there's no guarantee that temperature is equally in/accurate.

Are there eggs in it right now?

 

[Billsley]

28% humidity is fine, just track your air cell growth. Lots of people do a dry hatch in that range and it works great for them. But you do need to be able to raise it for lockdown. Have you messed around with combinations of sponges/dishes/ect to see what you can get?

What kind of incubator are you using? Someone with experience with that model(or even if it's DIY) may have better advice.

For temperature, is it a still or forced air incubator? Does the thermometer show different temperatures if you move it around? It's possible that both are correct and your thermometer is in a cooler spot, this can happen with either type.
Finding a third thermometer, preferably one you can calibrate as a tie breaker, is your best bet. If your incubator is a cheap one, you may be safer assuming it's wrong. If you have an incubator that's generally considered reliable(eg a Brinsea), I'd go with the incubator.
I don't know if there are ways of verifying a non-wand thermometer. I'd probably see if my fridge or freezer say what temperature they're set to and compare to those, or compare to my nearest weather station over the course of a few days. Do a salt test- it's at least an indication of the build quality of the unit, even if there's no guarantee that temperature is equally in/accurate.

Are there eggs in it right now?

Hi thanks for the reply,
our Incubator is the Janoel 12 and I have experimented with combinations. I currently have a soft drink bottle cap with water and its currently at 45%. The incubator is a forced air incubator (has a fan) and I have tried the thermometer in two spots both show a few degrees lower than the Built in display. Just bought a bluetooth fob type humidity and thermometer that I can calibrate, but my only concern is I already have 12 eggs in it atm.

 

[Kiraeh]

I don't know that incubator well enough to know if it can be trusted. :/ searching Janoel on the forums brings up a bunch of threads though. At a glance it seems not bad- lots of people have good hatches, some do have temperature troubles. Might be helpful to look through and see what you can find for humidity too.
How good do you think your other thermometer is? Digitals can be pretty unreliable, though the one I got for my incubator was dead on.

It's stressful, there's no way to tell whats the right call when thermometers you can't calibrate don't agree. They could both be low, and your incubator is running hot already. What day are you on? If you already have what seems to be normal development, then trust the incubator for now.

 

[Kiraeh]

Whups, I see you're too early to candle. Any chance you have that fob in your hand and aren't waiting for shipping? The first few days are the worst for worrying, once you see something going on you can breathe a little sigh of relief and think 'at least I'm not doing everything wrong'. Then wind that anxiety slowly back up until hatch day haha.