(Seasons have a big impact on humidity levels and running dry. Many people that have had not so great hatches (especially with the cheaper styrofoam incubators) have switched to the dry method and have had better results. Dry incubation is becoming more and more popular among chicken hatchers. The second way: start with a dry incubation if your incubator holds at least 25% when completely dry. If they are still growing raise it a bit more.īy keeping track of what your percentages are, you'll have a better idea of what percentage of humidity works for you. Significantly large, I'd say raise it TO 60% (not raise it 60% more.just up to 60% total,) for a couple days and check to see progress. (Again, how much is going to depend on the discrepancy. This will slow down/stop air cell growth and let the development catch up with the air cell size. If the air cells are too big then you need to higher the humidity. If it's significantly small, I'd go dry, at least for a couple days and candle after 2 days to see the progress and make the next decision.) If it's borderline small, I'd go, 10% less. In this case you need to lower your humidity. If your air cells are too small, you know that your humidity is too high. Compare what you are seeing to the chart. If your air cells aren't where they need to be at these times, you still have time to regulate before going into lockdown. Pick a number from 30-50%, (the range you'll find a good majority of hatchers use for the first 17 days.) Start your incubation at that number-but monitor your air cells! Candle your eggs at days 7&14 especially. I believe that there are two ways to go about knowing how to regulate your humidity so that it works for you. This is the one I use: (I'd give credit to the creator if I knew who that was.) So how do we know how big the air cells should be? There are many egg pictorials or air cell charts out there. This can suffocate them if they have not pipped, if they manage to pip they will be stuck and not be able to move to finish the job. On the flip side of that if your air cells grow too big the membrane can “shrink wrap” your chick. If that air cell is not big enough and there is too much moisture there he/she can drown. This is very important because when your little chick decides it's time to hatch, he/she is going to pip into the area where the air cell should be. As the moisture leaves, the air cell in the egg grows. Moisture leaves the eggs through the pores of the shell. This weight that it is loosing is actually moisture. An egg needs to loose 13/14% of it's weight during incubation. So how do you make the confusing understandable? In my opinion the first step is to understand why we control the humidity. Some very seasoned hatchers don't even bother with monitoring humidity because they've done it so much they just know what works for them. They have just found what works for them. Getting a definite answer is impossible and the issue of humidity can be very confusing. The quality of eggs also can play a role. The habits of the hatcher, the area that they are in and whether they have a dry or humid atmosphere. Why is this? Because different things work for different people because of various factors that these books and manuals do not take into consideration. The only thing that is widely agreed upon is that at lockdown and hatch it needs to be higher. These manuals either throw out a number, (that in my opinion is usually too high) or tell you how much water to put in the wells (regardless of how much humidity that causes.)Īsk what your humidity should be on a forum and you will undoubtedly get at least a dozen different opinions. I read in a book it should be between this number and that number. How many people know why you regulate humidity as a newbie? I know I didn't. The biggest thing with these manuals that bother me though is the humidity recommendations. It doesn't mean the hatch will be “late”, but it certainly can contribute to it. A newbie follows this instruction and ends up with a late hatch. Ask any veteran hatcher and they will tell you that still air incubators run better hatches at 101-102F measured near the top of the egg. Many of the still air incubator manuals still state that the incubator should maintain 99.5F. I'm sure there's some pertinent info in there about your specific incubator, but as a guideline for new hatchers they are awful!!!!! These manuals are very generic and often not accurate where hatching is concerned.
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