Managing humidity in a cheap incubator?

[Susan Skylark]

I bought a cheaper incubator on Amazon l had recently used a borrowed nurture right 360 for two batches of quail eggs. I really liked the 360 but didn’t plan on spending quite that much (plus a quail rail) at the moment. I did a little looking and picked something that looked decent and we’ll see what happens. I’m impressed with its ability to maintain an even temp (also purchased a couple thermometer/hygrometer units) but the humidity is ridiculous (doesn’t even have a built in hygrometer). I started, as per the very inadequate instructions, to fill a water bottle and place it in the provided attachment thingy (and spilled everywhere as that contraption isn’t very well designed but I guess I won’t need it!). It was running 80-85 percent! So I removed the water attachment and dried everything up and it was still running 65 percent for several hours with only the residual moisture in the bottom. I opened it a few times and gradually it came down. I then let it run overnight and it was 25 percent in the morning. I add 5 mls water with a syringe and it then ran in the sixties, so dried it out and opened a few more times until I hit the mid forties. I did throw in some fertile chicken fridge eggs (no idea on age!) just to see what happens (that and I want to see how easy it is to candle white chicken eggs after doing quail), it is only day 2 and 8/9 are developing, go figure! Any ideas on how to equalize the humidity in this beast? It does not have any sort of vent or air holes either. I was thinking add a ml every morning or so and see how that works, I’d probably do dry incubation if the humidity didn’t want tank below 25 percent at times if run dry. Any other ideas greatly appreciated, you do get what you pay for!

 

[NatJ]

Any ideas on how to equalize the humidity in this beast? It does not have any sort of vent or air holes either. I was thinking add a ml every morning or so and see how that works, I’d probably do dry incubation if the humidity didn’t want tank below 25 percent at times if run dry. Any other ideas greatly appreciated, you do get what you pay for!

I would probably do dry incubation for the first week or so, then check the size of the air cells by candling. (Ther are charts on the internet showing what size the air cell should be at certain stages of development.)

If the air cells are fine at that point, go dry for another week. If they are still fine, let it stay dry until lockdown, then add water to raise the humidity for hatching.

If you run it dry and the air cells are too big after one week, then you need to raise the humidity. But at that point, getting the humidity a bit too high is probably fine (if they lost a bit too much water in the first week, they need to lose less in the second week.)

If they can incubate with no added water, that will be much easier than trying to stabilize the humidity at any other level!

For adding water if you need to, maybe put in a piece of wet sponge. Use a smaller or a larger sponge depending on how much humidity you need to add (bigger sponge, more surface area, more humidity.) Then re-wet the sponge at whatever intervals it seems to need.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Thanks, apparently adding exactly 3 mls of water twice a day works well on this model too, but the sponge thing is worth a try as well.

 

[NatJ]

Thanks, apparently adding exactly 3 mls of water twice a day works well on this model too, but the sponge thing is worth a try as well.

I'm glad you found a method that works