Thoughts about Humidity at Lockdown

[SegiDream]

Hi all,

Here is some back story: last year I did dry incubation a couple times April-May with the nurture right 360 with success - humidity stayed in the 35-40% range. Had a good hatch rate.

This year I started batch #1 in January and found out ambient humidity is my nemesis atm. Currently on batch #2 using water in the A reservoir only and humidity has stayed in the 46-49% range throughout with the vent wide open. Today was the first day of "lockdown" and by changing the vent from wide open to 1/3 open the humidity is around 63%. Based on past trial and error I feel that adding water to the B reservoir will spike humidity too high. This is a small batch, 3 eggs made it to lockdown.

I don't weigh or measure moisture loss - though when I candled for lockdown the moisture loss/size of the air sac seems to be right on par.

Think it's safe to keep the 63% humidity all the way through lockdown? And/or tips to raise it without adding to the B reservoir and without endangering hatching chicks?

 

[Yardmom]

63 should work. It will raise when the first one hatched.

 

[Debbie292d]

I agree with @Yardmom

I do 65% for lockdown as soon as they start hatching, it'll be over 80%. That's fine though as long as they're pipping, zipping, and hatching.

 

[SegiDream]

Thank you all. My main instinct said it would be fine. I was just way over-thinking / worried about it. High humidity caused a few curled toes in the past and possibly a few failures to hatch.

2 are safely hatched out and the 3rd one externally pipped probably around 3am. *relief*

 

[Tex452]

I dry hatch, and never add any water, I don’t open the incubator until day 18 when I candle for the first time.
I use two nurture right 360 and a maticoopx 30 incubators.
I’m hatching in the garage now instead of inside of the house and the humidity has been higher,40-50%, when they start hatching it will jump up in the 80% range.
Inside the house the humidity stays at 30-35%.
I have all 3 incubators full and are scheduled to hatch on the same day.

 

[SegiDream]

I dry hatch, and never add any water, I don’t open the incubator until day 18 when I candle for the first time.
I use two nurture right 360 and a maticoopx 30 incubators.
I’m hatching in the garage now instead of inside of the house and the humidity has been higher,40-50%, when they start hatching it will jump up in the 80% range.
Inside the house the humidity stays at 30-35%.
I have all 3 incubators full and are scheduled to hatch on the same day.

The humidity is usually really high here so I dry hatch usually starting in mid-late March through May. The incubator itself and this style of incubator is new to me. However I started this year's first batch in January and lost the whole batch literally because of attempting the dry method. We had some very strong arctic cold snaps this year down into the single digits so I'm not sure incubating outside would have been wise.

 

[Tex452]

The humidity is usually really high here so I dry hatch usually starting in mid-late March through May. The incubator itself and this style of incubator is new to me. However I started this year's first batch in January and lost the whole batch literally because of attempting the dry method. We had some very strong arctic cold snaps this year down into the single digits so I'm not sure incubating outside would have been wise.

I dry hatched through the summer inside of the house, it just gets too hot in the garage, but my hatches were really good.
I’m in a high humidity area also, I don’t hatch through the fall and winter because of hunting season.

 

[SegiDream]

This is my first year attempting a winter hatch... I've been trying to breed/hatch dark brahmas for a few years now to grow my flock and have had bad luck. Like the chickens I got died before they laid eggs, or finally got eggs but they weren't fertile, one died from a prolapse and injury from that, and then the old incubator went on the fritz and I lost a whole batch of eggs and then they stopped laying. Then I made plans to meet a breeder a few hours away and that same day on my way home from work was cut off in traffic and totaled my car. I cried for hours half because of the car, half because of the chickens. So I mean, of course I started the incubator as soon as they started laying this year.

 

[McChooky]

My diy incubator can hold 18 eggs but its too narrow for any roller tray on the market so I made a manual roller tray instead. I just have to roll the tray to one side of the incubator or the other (one full turn) I chose the dry hatch method because our humidity is 50% here year round. The last thing I want is to drown them all before they hatch

 

[McChooky]

This is my first year attempting a winter hatch... I've been trying to breed/hatch dark brahmas for a few years now to grow my flock and have had bad luck. Like the chickens I got died before they laid eggs, or finally got eggs but they weren't fertile, one died from a prolapse and injury from that, and then the old incubator went on the fritz and I lost a whole batch of eggs and then they stopped laying. Then I made plans to meet a breeder a few hours away and that same day on my way home from work was cut off in traffic and totaled my car. I cried for hours half because of the car, half because of the chickens. So I mean, of course I started the incubator as soon as they started laying this year.

I was warned before I ever added a rooster to the flock 'not to count on getting any chicks for a couple years' .They were right! Without going into all the details I'll just say everything that could go wrong did go wrong for a while after I added a rooster but I finally got some chicks last year(before the broody decided to be a house chicken)I'm currently forcing her to live outside again and integrating her slowly back into the flock. She hatched 3 cockerels last fall and 2 pullets and the cockerels are trying to mate her now (I've already given one away) I still have one to process (soon as I get a sharper knife)I made soup out of the rooster I had(he was aggressive)The roosters from him will probably be as mean as him