Raising Humidity HELP!!!

[Farmboy101]

Im on lockdown day and I can't get my humidity up. Its sitting at 55%. Im trying to get it to 75%. All the trays are full, and i have 4 sponges in the incubator and its not doing anything!! HELP!!!

 

[happyfrenchman]

Humidity is a function of many variables. If you have moisture readily available, and your temperature is right, the air will only absorb what it will absorb. So don't stress it too much. It is probably not natural for chickens to hatch in a vaporizer anyway....you have to work with the air and altitude, temp and humidity that you have. I am not the greatest incubator so maybe I should not talk, but I don't even use humidity as a factor. I have in the past messed with it, and I even suspect some chicks drowned in the shell. Since then I dry hatch them and I have had better results. The eggs incubate at the humidity of the area around the incubator. (with whatever changes are due to the heat inside, which I suspect lowers the humidity even further). Mother hens don't humidify their eggs.... I hope you have a great hatch but don't stress too much about humidity. I believe that the best thing i ever did to improve my hatching was stop feeding the hens the layer mix with calcium carbonate... since that... humidity is not an issue at all. Best wishes and I hope you have a good one.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Im on lockdown day and I can't get my humidity up. Its sitting at 55%. Im trying to get it to 75%. All the trays are full, and i have 4 sponges in the incubator and its not doing anything!! HELP!!!

Hi, hope you are enjoying BYC!

I wonder.. is there any condensation on your window? Has your hygrometer been calibrated? My humidity varies according to location of receiver, just like my temp.

 

[Farmboy101]

Hi, hope you are enjoying BYC!

I wonder.. is there any condensation on your window? Has your hygrometer been calibrated? My humidity varies according to location of receiver, just like my temp.

Yes there is condensation on the window. The humidity has gone up to 60%. Its going up at a slow steady pace.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I believe that the best thing i ever did to improve my hatching was stop feeding the hens the layer mix with calcium carbonate... since that... humidity is not an issue at all.

So what do you feed? I use flock raiser 20% protein with oyster shell free choice on the side.

I see you have Marans, very easy to drown those if you don't dry hatch. But higher humidity at lock down should give you a better hatch rate as long as you lost enough moisture during the first 18 days. Yes, I hatched 9/12 Marans with only 10% humidity before lock down and raised to 67% for hatch.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Yes there is condensation on the window. The humidity has gone up to 60%. Its going up at a slow steady pace.

Condensation means your humidity is too high.

I suspect your device may be inaccurate.

 

[BYC910]

Any moisture visible on your viewing windows ? Where are you located . And have you calibrated your hygrometer? What type of incubator do you have ?

 

[savannahRoos22]

I think heated water moisture in a cold room has condensation.

 

[goedric]

you can calibrate your device to make sure its working properly... put half cup damp salt in a baggie with the probe.. it should reach 75% in a couple hrs.. if not its not calibrated properly and you can use the results to calibrtate in the future... so if it says 60% you knwo 60% means 75%... but if you need to up humidity you need to increase the damp surface area in the incubator.. a wad of coffee filters in a glass bowl is one way also if you ahve lots of air circulation that could be the issue.... you cant easily humidify a huge room with a bowl of water... so make sure the bator is not leaking like a sieve... good luck! its all stressful! I know !

 

[happyfrenchman]

So what do you feed? I use flock raiser 20% protein with oyster shell free choice on the side.

I see you have Marans, very easy to drown those if you don't dry hatch. But higher humidity at lock down should give you a better hatch rate as long as you lost enough moisture during the first 18 days. Yes, I hatched 9/12 Marans with only 10% humidity before lock down and raised to 67% for hatch.

I feed mine Flock raiser too. They free range from noon to dark with scratch for a treat. There is oyster shell in the pathway to the coop. It's true, I drowned many a chick when I was doing the humidity at the recommended rate. 9 of 12 is better than I have ever done. I recently hatched 8 of 16 which is believe it or not, for me, a personal best. 6 are pullets so I was pretty happy. I believe those cheap hygrometers are questionable to begin with. If you have air circulating, at 99 degrees, the air will only hold so much moisture. The slight increase at hatching time might help but I do a rolling hatch generally. (I select only the darkest eggs so I might only put one in every two days. I take them out of the turner at day 18 and put them in a wire basket on the bottom shelf. The incubator sits in my shop so there is no special arrangements other than I have a cooling fan as well as a circulating fan.