water wiggler idea doesn't make sense to me

[urbanagrarian]

OK I want to preface this by letting you all know I have never hatched eggs before. I hope to soon but I NO experience in this area.

The idea of putting the thermometer inside the water wiggler seems wrong to me. It seem like you would get wider swings in the incubator temp that way.

It seems akin to putting your household thermostat inside a foam pillow. If you did this, I think you would have some very wide swings of temperature in the room.

What am I missing?

Urban Agrarian
http://urban-agrarian.blogspot.com/

 

[FutureChickenMan]

from what I understand, the thermometer in the water wiggler is to get an estimate of the temperature inside the egg, an internal egg termperature simulator. I think where your confusion lies is thinking this thermometer has something to do with temperature controls. It doesn't. The thermostat is a separate entity from the watter wiggler thermometer.

Maybe one of our more experienced hatchers can chime in and give a better explination than i did.

 

[Katy]

The water wiggler helps show more closely the temp inside the egg....kind of like a fake egg. The temps in mine hardly ever change. By the way you can get them for .89 at walmart...in the toy section where the bubbles and stuff like that are.

 

[PurpleChicken]

In a way you are correct. The thermometer in the wiggler won't pick up
the swings that are common in incubators due to opening, turning eggs,
adding water, or just their design.

The thing is:
1-The most important temp is what the inside of the egg is. The wiggler/
thermometer combo will give you that.
2-Temp swings occur naturally for the reasons I listed. Plus the location
of the thermometer is critical. If it's too close to a heating element it will
give a false high reading. Same if it's on the base.

 

[jkcove08]

Most people will run with 2 themometers, 1 in a wiggler for internal idea for temp and 1 in the bator to know what that temp is reading. WHen you talk about themometers everyone has their favorites and ones they hate. Usually it is a it or miss on the actual temp and you need to find several brands and compare them. The only true way to have a good hand on temp is to get the new hovabator that has the temp preset. I guess you would still want a thermoneter to make sure it is set right though. I like the ones from walmart that have the humidity reading also. My liking not for everyone though. You will have to find what you are the most comfortable with for you. Jenn

 

[silkiechicken]

I agree with those statements. The wiggler is to get an inner egg estimate of temperature. The incubator temperature is controlled by a different entity.

 

[urbanagrarian]

Quote:
I just got my digital hova-bator yesterday. Those are the only incubator instructions I have ever read. It seems I just set it and forget it and only change anything if the hatch was bad. It came with a dinky little thermometer, but said that the thermostat was more accurate than the thermometer. So I'm guessing that the thermometer will really just let me know that there has been a big malfunction.

Do those of you that use the water wiggler, change your setting based on what it says or do you use it more to see what temperature inside the egg correlated with a good hatch?