UPDATE incubator questions p.5 : Crossing all my fingers!

[Mrs MIA]

I will keep my fingers crossed for you!!!

 

[Solsken Farm]

Oh I am soo soo sorry, NP.

I don't know if you saw my post on Jody's egg thread, but I hope you will consider going out and getting a Hovabator genesisi 1588. It is such a great easy little bator. It keeps the temps and humidity really perfect with very little work. I am steady at 65 degrees on day 19 right now. Always stays 99.5-100. This is not a still air, so the temps are alittle higher.

I am sure the LG is to blame for the low humidity and subsequent poor hatches.

Good luck with the couple beauties you have. I know this is heartbreaking.

 

[klf73]

Quote:
Jen- think ya got your degrees and humidity confused girl

NP- sorry about your chickie

Krista

 

[Solsken Farm]

Quote:
Jen- think ya got your degrees and humidity confused girl

NP- sorry about your chickie

Krista

Oy, it does read backwards. 65 humidity, temps 95.5-100.

Thanks someone who didn't know better might have followed it improperly.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
What do you do about the humidity? Just go with it at 45%? I'm assuming that the one chick had membrane stuck to it because it was too dry in there.

I have the LG as well, and I have trouble getting my humidity to go over 45% too. I think the highest I have been able to get it to stay at was about 54%, and that was with all the little troughs in the bottom filled, a small butter/cottage cheese bowl cut down to fit under the wire with sponges in it, and another on top of the wire like that, plus these are both filled with water. You can also put a piece of paper towel, rolled up, with the end of it in the water, to serve as a wick. That brought mine up to about 50-55%, but that was before I put the sponges in. So when mine go to hatch, I'll do the paper towel thing, and it should bring it up enough. But I have still had about 90% hatches, before doing any of these things, so idk what to say about that. My chickens are all pretty young though, so maybe that helps. Idk how your's are. Hope this helps, and good luck with the ones you did hatch...I'm sure they will be spoiled!!

 

[JanieMarie]

First sorry about your loss but congrats on the babies! I have a LG still air and couldn't get the hum up either. I ended up putting 2 bowls of water with a paper towel wicking between them. If I used just 1 bowl the water would siphon out of the bowl all over the floor. Then sponges on top so if any rambunctious chicks decided to go swimming they wouldn't drown. I put one bowl under one of the top air vents so I could add water with a turkey baster through the hole if I needed to. I also had another bowl of water with sponge just for insurance. This brought my humidity up to 60-65% and stayed there for the whole hatch. I'm setting up right now for 10 eggs to go into the hatcher tomorrow so I'll post a pic. Here we go again!

 

[m_herrington]

Quote:
What do you do about the humidity? Just go with it at 45%? I'm assuming that the one chick had membrane stuck to it because it was too dry in there.

I have the LG as well, and I have trouble getting my humidity to go over 45% too. I think the highest I have been able to get it to stay at was about 54%, and that was with all the little troughs in the bottom filled, a small butter/cottage cheese bowl cut down to fit under the wire with sponges in it, and another on top of the wire like that, plus these are both filled with water. You can also put a piece of paper towel, rolled up, with the end of it in the water, to serve as a wick. That brought mine up to about 50-55%, but that was before I put the sponges in. So when mine go to hatch, I'll do the paper towel thing, and it should bring it up enough. But I have still had about 90% hatches, before doing any of these things, so idk what to say about that. My chickens are all pretty young though, so maybe that helps. Idk how your's are. Hope this helps, and good luck with the ones you did hatch...I'm sure they will be spoiled!!

hmm... I'm pretty new to this but I have the LG and I haven't really had any humidity issues. The first hatch I did I did dry incubation and the humidity stayed about 40% without adding any water until day 18.

I was able to keep the humidity at 85% for my duck to hatch as well. - I put both red plugs in the holes on top and filled the troughs with water and took a cloth washcloth and soaked it in warm water and laid it in there folded in 4ths long ways.

It also may help that I do not have A/C and the incubator stays in my bathroom, it adds a little extra humidity to the air once a day.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I tried putting a wet washcloth in mine as well, but it didn't work as well as the bowls with water and sponges did. I had better luck with my humidity when we were using the A/C. Now that we have it off I am really fighting it to get it to stay up. I thought you were supposed to take out the plugs when they are ready to hatch?

I could be wrong though.

 

[ninjapoodles]

All right--we're getting ready to set a new batch this week. Try, try again and all that.

We want to buy a fan kit for the LGs...what is a good source for those? Any favorite websites?

Also, I have a question about thermometers. I notice that many people seem to have the one we're using, which is an Accurite digital that measures temp/humidity. But I see in lots of pictures that people seem to be putting the entire unit INSIDE the incubator. We didn't do that--we ran the sensor through a hole in the top of the incubator, and kept the readout part of the unit on the outside. Is that not the right way to do it?

Is there a better thermometer/hydrometer to use? What kind to most of you use?

Those of you who use a water wiggler, do you use a thermometer in that AND another one measuring the air temp?

Thanks for answering these questions. We REALLY want to improve our success rate here.

 

[hinkjc]

Humidity does vary depending on your climate where you live, which will make some LGs work differently for some folks than others.

Shelley - I thought at least one of the plugs should be out on a still air for ventilation as well.

Jody