Hi,
I have gone through 3 hatches with my new Hovabator 1602N. This incubator has a wafer thermostat and a fan. My hatch rates are like 10%.
I tried higher humidity and lower rates. Tracked my egg weight on this last hatch to 13% loss which I think should be ok. Humidity variation doesn't seem to be affecting the hatch.
I am loosing about 1/2 the eggs getting to lockdown. The rest die through lockdown. Some die in lockdown before internal pip, some after and some die after external pip. I usually get 2 live hatches. On right on day 21 and one weaker smaller bird on day 22. When I do an eggtopsy, I see eggs that quit in all stages of development. No clear problem seems to present itself.
I think my problem is temperature, but I am not sure. The incubator can't seem to hold a temp. consistently at 99.5. I get temp variations high and low up to .7 degrees. I don't fiddle with the the settings until the temp really starts to drift. Over .5 degrees. If I don't adjust the thermostat to stop the drift the temp would continue trending up or down. I could get it to sit on 99.5 for a day our two, then it would drift up to 100.3 over the course of 2 days. I would then turn it down and in a day or two it would start to drift again.
Am I alone in my problems with the wafer thermostat or is this the nature of the beast. Should the thermostat require continuous tweeking? It drifted both up and down at various times in the hatch.
Any experience would be most appreciated.
Thx!
I have gone through 3 hatches with my new Hovabator 1602N. This incubator has a wafer thermostat and a fan. My hatch rates are like 10%.
I tried higher humidity and lower rates. Tracked my egg weight on this last hatch to 13% loss which I think should be ok. Humidity variation doesn't seem to be affecting the hatch.
I am loosing about 1/2 the eggs getting to lockdown. The rest die through lockdown. Some die in lockdown before internal pip, some after and some die after external pip. I usually get 2 live hatches. On right on day 21 and one weaker smaller bird on day 22. When I do an eggtopsy, I see eggs that quit in all stages of development. No clear problem seems to present itself.
I think my problem is temperature, but I am not sure. The incubator can't seem to hold a temp. consistently at 99.5. I get temp variations high and low up to .7 degrees. I don't fiddle with the the settings until the temp really starts to drift. Over .5 degrees. If I don't adjust the thermostat to stop the drift the temp would continue trending up or down. I could get it to sit on 99.5 for a day our two, then it would drift up to 100.3 over the course of 2 days. I would then turn it down and in a day or two it would start to drift again.
Am I alone in my problems with the wafer thermostat or is this the nature of the beast. Should the thermostat require continuous tweeking? It drifted both up and down at various times in the hatch.
Any experience would be most appreciated.
Thx!