Humidity fluctuation obsession!!

[dbounds10]

My very first hatch set this morning. I have a brand new Chick Cozy that I set up and ran all night to make sure it was holding temp/humidity. This morning it was at 99.5 and 50%. Which was exactly where I wanted it. I set the eggs and added an additional Govee to the thermometer stand. The incubator always says 99.5 and the Govee is consistently 100.5- 10.6. But the humidity is all over the place (5-7% up or down from the incubator. But the incubator humidity has been up and down as well. Running between 49-57%. It is in my spare bedroom. My question is…do I need to battle this thing to be stable at a certain % or is the 45-55% “range” ok?? Should I shut the house AC vent or maybe put a small humidifier in the room? I am in Fort Worth Tx and the temps are ALLLL over the place outside between day and night. Days mid 60’s to 80 and lows from 40’s to mid 50’s. I can’t stop staring at it LOL.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

What model Govee are you using?
Honestly, I would trust the Govee over the incubator reading.
You can do as you choose but I would cut back the incubator setting to 98.5.
Don't freak out about the humidity. In nature, that will be all over the place. What you are trying to achieve in incubation is a weight loss of about 15% over the incubation rather than a consistent humidity. Eggs vary in porosity and therefor they will lose weight at different rates.
In nature, humidity can be all over the place, yet eggs still hatch and hens don't have hygrometers.
You definitely want to stabilize the temp and humidity in the room with the incubator.

 

[Slothinc]

I have a chickcozy incubator and have had issues with the temp and humidity. I finally have figured out how to use mine (the chickcozy temp is higher that actual temp and humidity too) put your govee all over the incubator -down where the eggs are sitting, in the front, back, sides etc. I do this with multiple thermometers. The area in the front of the incubator where the thermometer is supposed to sit reads higher to me than the area where the eggs are. Be leery, I have had many horrible terrible hatches in my incubator. Thankfully now that the settings are figured out, I have had one good hatch in it. It was just upsetting to have so many bad ones.

 

[skowen1228]

I'm currently on day 7 of incubating with a ChickCozy and have been struggling with the temperatures and the humidity since day one! Ugh! This is my first time incubating so really trying hard to do everything by the book! However, it's been frustrating and an obsession!

By Day 3, I ended up having 2 Govee thermometers in the incubator with one of them being WIFI so I could monitor it at work! To get my temperature to where it needed to be, I had to set my incubator to 101.5 to get both Govee's to read between 99.5-100.0 daily. I also used the styrofoam that the incubator came in and put it around the incubator along with covering it with a towel and blanket. To date, my average temperature is now 99.8 F degrees.

The first several days my humidity was running on average of 44.6% which is below the recommended 45-55%. This was with water in Tray A. I would add water to the other trays and it would spike to 58-59% but would never average out. So...I bought a Govee Humidifier that is WIFI and can be monitored on the same App has my Govee thermometer (I can turn it on/off while at work and control the mist level.) I do believe the humidifier has helped as my humidity is now averaging around 49%. (I live in Kansas.)

I really question if I'm going to have a good hatch rate now because of the early issues with the temperature and the humidity. If I do get some to hatch they are going to be the most expensive chicks with all the new equipment I bought just to incubate them! Ha..ha..

Good luck! Hope you have a good hatch rate!

 

[Slothinc]

I'm currently on day 7 of incubating with a ChickCozy and have been struggling with the temperatures and the humidity since day one! Ugh! This is my first time incubating so really trying hard to do everything by the book! However, it's been frustrating and an obsession!

By Day 3, I ended up having 2 Govee thermometers in the incubator with one of them being WIFI so I could monitor it at work! To get my temperature to where it needed to be, I had to set my incubator to 101.5 to get both Govee's to read between 99.5-100.0 daily. I also used the styrofoam that the incubator came in and put it around the incubator along with covering it with a towel and blanket. To date, my average temperature is now 99.8 F degrees.

The first several days my humidity was running on average of 44.6% which is below the recommended 45-55%. This was with water in Tray A. I would add water to the other trays and it would spike to 58-59% but would never average out. So...I bought a Govee Humidifier that is WIFI and can be monitored on the same App has my Govee thermometer (I can turn it on/off while at work and control the mist level.) I do believe the humidifier has helped as my humidity is now averaging around 49%. (I live in Kansas.)

I really question if I'm going to have a good hatch rate now because of the early issues with the temperature and the humidity. If I do get some to hatch they are going to be the most expensive chicks with all the new equipment I bought just to incubate them! Ha..ha..

Good luck! Hope you have a good hatch rate!

I hope that yours do well! You are doing awesome staying on top of it!! All of my hatches were shipped eggs, (so very expensive ) so it has been very disappointing. Mine also needs to be set at 101.5-102 to get the correct temp inside. I can only imagine how many people have had bad hatches in the thing because of the temp and humidity being so far off!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Personally, I believe 45-55% is too high throughout incubation. 55% and higher is appropriate at the end to prevent shrink wrapping.
For many reasons, I prefer to trust a good gram scale rather than a hygrometer for proper humidity.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I hope that yours do well! You are doing awesome staying on top of it!! All of my hatches were shipped eggs, (so very expensive ) so it has been very disappointing. Mine also needs to be set at 101.5-102 to get the correct temp inside. I can only imagine how many people have had bad hatches in the thing because of the temp and humidity being so far off!

Yep. The thing is that no electronic device can be trusted out of the box. Just because it is new, it isn't necessarily calibrated and that can change.
Some incubators actually have a calibration feature once it is in place and you identify how far off the reading is whether high or low and it allows you to enter that value as an offset then you can trust the reading.
What you can do is go with your best guess, whether that be the reading on the incubator or one or more trusted thermometers. Keep it as close to a single temperature throughout. Then when the chicks hatch, if they hatched 21 days later, it is all good.
Take the time at first setting when the eggs came up to temperature or approached it depending on the wattage and if they hatch before the set time 3 weeks later, the temperature was high, if they hatch late, the temperature was low. If they are a full day early, it was likely about 1 F high.
There are other variables besides temperature like size and age of eggs but in general, you can set your calendar if not your watch by when eggs hatch.
Set at noon on a Friday, expect them at noon on a Friday.

 

[dbounds10]

Personally, I believe 45-55% is too high throughout incubation. 55% and higher is appropriate at the end to prevent shrink wrapping.
For many reasons, I prefer to trust a good gram scale rather than a hygrometer for proper humidity.

Are you taking them in and out regularly to weigh them? I did not weigh them before as I had not heard this info before they went in so it’s too late for that now. However, I thought once they go in you don’t want to be opening it a bunch. What humidity do you run for the incubation period?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Are you taking them in and out regularly to weigh them? I did not weigh them before as I had not heard this info before they went in so it’s too late for that now. However, I thought once they go in you don’t want to be opening it a bunch. What humidity do you run for the incubation period?

That's fine. You can do this next time.
Once I realized how fickle many of the old school hygrometers were I quit using them and trying to keep them calibrated. I got a good pocket gram scale that was repeatable which meant reliability. (lots of scales aren't repeatable). So for years, I only weighed and only paid cursory attention to humidity at the end of incubation when humidity needs to be higher. I only weigh weekly. If I only have a few eggs, I use the pocket gram scale but if I have a lot of eggs I weigh whole flats on a platform kitchen scale that is extremely accurate. It will weigh up to 8,000 grams at a time.
I usually weigh eggs I want to hatch at collection, at setting and weekly. Then I can graph the numbers to see if they are losing too much weight or not enough. Then I adjust the humidity and check it in another week.

 

[La Ferme de Sarah]

I have a chickcozy incubator and have had issues with the temp and humidity. I finally have figured out how to use mine (the chickcozy temp is higher that actual temp and humidity too) put your govee all over the incubator -down where the eggs are sitting, in the front, back, sides etc. I do this with multiple thermometers. The area in the front of the incubator where the thermometer is supposed to sit reads higher to me than the area where the eggs are. Be leery, I have had many horrible terrible hatches in my incubator. Thankfully now that the settings are figured out, I have had one good hatch in it. It was just upsetting to have so many bad ones.

Hi Slothinc,
Thanks for answering my post. I am reading all the Chick cozy posts LOL.

What happened with the hatches that were terrible? Do you mean, eggs that didn't grow or stopped growing or disabled or deformed chicks?

I will do what you said and put the Govee down near the eggs but that will be hard as I have 24 and don't want to take the eggs out too long.
Sigh.... Oh dear, should have done this before they came.