Please help with a homemade incubator--what am I doing wrong????

[rebelcowboysnb]

Moving the bowl closer to the fan an light will bring your humidity up or add another bowl....

 

[cici_p]

Ok, I finally got my humidity up by putting another bowl in, a sponge in both bowls, and moving one right underneath the light bulb and fan--it is now up to 55%-60%. I am going to experiment with spraying water in through one of my cork holes to raise it higher, as I will need to do closer to hatching time. Are there any other tips with adjusting humidity?? It doesn't seem to be as "scientific" as adjusting temperature.
I also am getting my temperatures much closer. Just compared my digital thermometer to a real one, and found out it is almost a degree high, so now I have tweaked up my thermostat ever so gently. . .The air temp is holding within two degrees though, so once I find that happy spot, I think I will be golden!
Only problem is getting the air temp back up when I open the lid for a while--this can take 10-15 min. The temp in the "egg" drops about a degree at that time. Is this acceptable???

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

Put some bottles of water in the corners of your bator. The water in the bottles will hold the temperature so that when you open and then close, it will stabalize faster. Gopher boy recommended it, I did it and it is working great. Give it a try. He used baby food jars. I haven't had babies in our house for some time now, so I used a salsa jar.

 

[cici_p]

I think I've finally got it!
Got the humidity up to 60% (I want to hatch duck and goose eggs) and then had to tweak the thermometer to raise the temp (the higher humidity lowered it). After quite some time of running, my water wiggler is sitting right at 99.5!!!! (With two thermometers checking)

There is only a .2 variation in my water wiggler temp, so I think I'm golden!!!
I am soooooo excited.
Thank you everyone, for all the help!!!!

 

[Dandelion007]

A hot water heater thermostat really needs to be mounted to metal. Also, it has to be very close to the bulb. I get one degree air temp fluctuations with a large homemade bator. I found a vegetable can works very nicely to mount the thermostat on. Just wire the light through the bottom and use it like a glass globe. I have pictures of it on my BYC page.

 

[cici_p]

Wow, that is a cool idea how you have your bulb and thermostat hooked up. I wonder if the guard you have on would help keep the temperature more stable with varying humidity? My temps stay very constant unless I change my hunidity, and then the water wiggler temp raises or lowers by a degree (which I don't like). I am going to keep tweaking this weekend, but I think that I am getting close.

 

[emvickrey]

My temp stays consistant but the humdity has been a real problem. It will reach 50% but then it may drop to the 30's overnight. It seems to happen when it rains outside. This is my first hatch so I guess it is the experimantal run.