Surprise fertil eggs as gift so made a quick incubator.

[aart]

Whooooaaaa those are great pics!!

 

[007Sean]

Depending on your locations ambient humidity, a better range to aim for would be 40 to 50% humidity for the 1st 18 days.
Raising the humidity for the final 3 days, should not go above 70%. Higher than 70% will cause problems with the chicks becoming "stuck" which is different from "shrink wrapped". When the chick is "stuck" it is unable to rotate/turn when zipping. There's to much moisture in the egg and the chick keeps sliding back to it's original starting point, or will zip two times forward and one backwards, tiring the chick out, thus delaying it's hatching or possibly death due to exhaustion, sometimes it can't turn at all, thus it becomes stuck.
Also, high humidity at saturation point will cause condensation on the top side of the bator. The water droplets can fall on a pipped egg and could result in a drowned chick.
These have been my experiences, your's may and probably will differ. Best wishes for a successful hatch.

PS: Great pics of the candled eggs.

 

[arpolis]

Since it is winter with the heater on in the home, when I check the eggs, the humidity often drops to the low 30% - upper 20% range quickly. I have two dishes of water in there keeping it up. Even with the humidity at its highest there is never any condensation. The Lexan plastic is double panned with 3/4” in between them. It does quite well. I can remove one of the dishes but one was barely keeping it above 50%.

 

[007Sean]

I see a digital temperature/hygrometer in your pics...is it calibrated?

 

[andreanar]

Poking my head in for the updates!

 

[aart]

I see a digital temperature/hygrometer in your pics...is it calabrated?

This works well for me...removed a huge hunk of variable from hatching:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...incubator-thermometers-and-hygrometers.73634/

 

[arpolis]

I see a digital temperature/hygrometer in your pics...is it calibrated?

It is as calibrated as the manufacture has it lol. Just a cheap on found on the fly to get things up and going.

 

[arpolis]

I candled just a couple today during the mid day eggs turning. And there is now movement! I took just a few seconds to watch the little chicks move around in their eggs. Probably about a centimeter to 2 centimeters long. They are growing!

 

[arpolis]

Day 11, 10 or 9 for my eggs. Most are on day 11 and just a few on 10 and 9. Brown eggs are hard to see but I did notice movement in one for sure. All the white eggs have movement with various degrees of development from the chick. The temp swing is pretty high on them from 100*F - 93*F. This hot water heater thermostat works but is not that sensitive. Even still, looks like I have good development.

 

[arpolis]

Look who dicided to start piping out about 3 days early. Today is day 18 from day zero being when they were put in the incubator. But the egg may have been at outside tempt for 2-4 days without a hen sitting on them before I gathered them.