Whoops! Humidity too high!

[Nancy Asselin]

I just realized ( on day 16) that I’ve been keeping my humidity in the incubator too high- 58-60°
Should I drop it to 50 till lock down? And at lockdown raise to 65°?

 

[JaeG]

How are the air cells looking? When the chicks do pip internally I would recommend making a safety hole for each egg. You drill a tiny hole with a fine drill bit or screw or fine pair of sharp scissors (disinfected first) and put the hole in the middle of the fat end of the egg well away from where you could come into contact with the membrane and the veins running through it. The shell in amazingly tough so you need something with a sharp point you can slowly drill into the shell. It only needs to just break through the shell to allow fresh air in.

The problem with air cells not growing large enough is that the chick will run out of oxygen before they are able to pip externally so a safety hole is a way of negating that occurrence. You could also hatch them with the fat end pointing upwards or tilted so that the low end of the air cell (which is where the chick will pip into) is at the highest point to ensure any excess moisture stays away from the chicks beak.