I'm currently trying to set up my incubator. I'll soon be receiving Eggs by mail and would like to get the temp fluctuation issue sorted out before they arrive. I have RITE FARM 3600 Pro force air incubator. With the incubator set on 100 degree F iit will spike to about 102 for a very short time then fall back down. Also with it set at 99 it will spike to about 101 for a short time. I currently have 2 thermometers in the incubator that are reading the same but different than the one on the unit. I I've set the unit to 98 and it will spike to around 99.5 and will bottom out at 98.2 before coming back on. I guess my question is is this acceptable.
Yes to me having a fluctuation from 98-102 and 102 being the highest I'd allow at any given time will be fine.
Temperature spikes are OK as long as they don't remain high or very low for an extended period of time. The temperatures that most of the thermometers are catching inside the incubator are going to be temperatures around the eggshells. The problem with the high temperature of 102° is when the entire egg is heated to that temperature and maintained at that temperature. If you have a temperature Of 102° for a short period of time it will likely not cause any problems. With that said, how long is too long? Sometimes that's hard to say. You obviously want to try to correct the issue if it does not correct itself over a few minutes. I pusually try to maintain my incubator at 100°. At various times during incubation he will see temperature swings lower and higher. As the chicks get older they start to produce their own heat inside the eggs. That's usually when I start to see temperature rise in my incubator. You were describing temperature spikes for what you described as a short period of time. As long as they are a short period of time and not long enough to raise the core of the egg, you should be fine.
i have built custom controllers and the reason they swing high and low is to stop the relay constantly clicking on and off. The sensors are reading the temperature about 100 times a second but no one is really interested in that so the controller lies and tells you what the average temperature is over a short period of time maybe every few seconds. Sensors that are set to report over short periods tend to show the swing worse than a thermostats that report slowly but at the end of the day they both cycle about the same amount on small incubators. Air temp isn't as important as internal egg temp. It takes time for the internal egg temp to change by which time the air temp has already changed. Once you add eggs you will have a heat sink where the eggs act as a heat storage which will slow down the changes in the air temp. Simply adding a sealed bottle of water can give you the same results. General rule of thumb is to take the lowest reading and the highest reading. The mid point between the readings is generally the temperature that you would expect as the internal egg temp on a forced air incubator. If you have a incubator that's not forced air then that's more complicated to estimate the internal temp.
