# Humidity Too Low In Incubator?



## Chans_Farm

I've decided I want to try to hatch chicken eggs in the incubator, for the first time. The trouble is, while it is staying right on the money for the temperature - 37.5c, I cannot get the humidity above 50% or so. Earlier, it was at 55%, but has since dropped to 50%. 

The pump has filled the reservoir that the fans blow the air over. Everything seems to be running fine, otherwise. (I don't have the UV lamp on yet.)

It's rainy season here now. But, we haven't had the rain this year that we had during the same time last year. It seems hotter, but the outside humidity still seems high here. 

If the humidity is still in the 50's tomorrow (12 hours from now), should I still put the eggs in the incubator? From what I understand, I need to increase the humidity the last three days. Right now, I can't even get it to 60%-65%, where it needs to be.

Image 1: Water tray with auto fill feature, humidity lamp and circulating fans.
Image 2: UV Lamp and heating element.
Image 3: Fan shroud in place, forces the air over the water tray.
Image 4: Control panel showing temp (red), humidity (blue), and rotating interval (yellow) in hours and duration of rotation in seconds.


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## robin416

So you already answered one question, ambient air. And from what you said its higher humidity right now. That leaves that your gauge is wrong. 

It seems like I remember reading that the complaints regarding your bator pretty much stemmed around the digital readout being wrong. If you can pick up a high quality thermo and hydro to double check the read out you're getting from the unit itself. Inaccurate readings for temp, in particular, and humidity is the number one reason for hatch failures.


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## Chans_Farm

robin416 said:


> So you already answered one question, ambient air. And from what you said its higher humidity right now. That leaves that your gauge is wrong.
> 
> It seems like I remember reading that the complaints regarding your bator pretty much stemmed around the digital readout being wrong. If you can pick up a high quality thermo and hydro to double check the read out you're getting from the unit itself. Inaccurate readings for temp, in particular, and humidity is the number one reason for hatch failures.


Not to question your experience here, as I am merely trying to learn here. But, while sitting there and watching the incubator today, something came to mind.

The humidity sensor is sampling air on the inside of the incubator. This is a sealed unit. How would the outside environment affect the internal humidity, or heat for that matter? Both are internally regulated, right?

God, these things are so simply built, yet so confusing.


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## Fiere

They aren't perfectly air locked, that's why. The temperature and humidity of the outside air can change the inside air a lot more than you'd expect. If the humidity and temp are constant outside, the incubator can find it's "common ground" and regulate, if the temp and humidity swing high and low, you will see that in the incubator readings.


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## Fiere

Also if there is low constant humidity outside, you'll have a hard time keeping your humidity up, if the humidity is high, you'll have a hard time keeping the humidity low. It's like osmosis at a cellular level lol. 

Indeed, so simply and yet so complex. All the hen does is sit there haha


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## Fiere

Sorry for the multiple postings, but are you just putting the eggs in now? The first 19 days of hatching the humidity *should* be under 50% (40-50% roughly) to allow for moisture loss and therefore air cell growth in the egg. You don't want to crank the humidity up until lockdown, so your readings right now are perfectly fine for incubation. Add more water reservoirs before lock down and fill them with hot water. The steam will raise the humidity.


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## robin416

Fiere, I love the way you explain things. You keep it simple enough anyone can understand it and cover all of the basis.

Yes, Chans, everything Fiere said. 

Here I can incubate in the coop without adding water because the humidity is so high outside. If in the house keeping humidity higher is harder because the house is climate controlled and humidity is kept low.


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## Chans_Farm

Fiere said:


> Sorry for the multiple postings, but are you just putting the eggs in now? The first 19 days of hatching the humidity *should* be under 50% (40-50% roughly) to allow for moisture loss and therefore air cell growth in the egg. You don't want to crank the humidity up until lockdown, so your readings right now are perfectly fine for incubation. Add more water reservoirs before lock down and fill them with hot water. The steam will raise the humidity.


Yes. Well, the plan was to put them in today. We brought some of the silkie eggs from the farm today, from the hen that is not broody. The other hen is setting on about 12 eggs under her.

Regarding the humidity, I guess I am spot on. I will go ahead and put them in the incubator (I assume pointy side down?), and start counting the days. I will follow your instructions for the 20th day then, and go with hot water in the bottom of the incubator.

I just don't want to see any of the little guys not hatch. It would be such a wonderful experience if all of them were to come into this world okay and healthy.

1st Image: Broody Hen
2nd Image: All Silkie Eggs
3rd Image: Silkie Chickens
4th Image: Chicks we purchased along with the other silkies last month.


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## Fiere

Raise the humidity and lock them down on the evening of the 19th day. They will hatch the 21st day provided you have no overly ambitious ones or slow pokes (I have a silkie hatching right now, it was externally pipped yesterday afternoon on day 18!), but to account for that you want a good span of high humidity to get them out of the shell without issues. Just watch the humidity so it doesn't spike too high, though with a big beefy incubator like yours that shouldn't be an issue! 

I love your nest baskets, they are too cool. What a cute little set up that is.


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## Chans_Farm

Image 1: One of my Silkie roosters.
Images 2 & 3: Close ups of the chicks.


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## Chans_Farm

Fiere said:


> Raise the humidity and lock them down on the evening of the 19th day. They will hatch the 21st day provided you have no overly ambitious ones or slow pokes (I have a silkie hatching right now, it was externally pipped yesterday afternoon on day 18!), but to account for that you want a good span of high humidity to get them out of the shell without issues. Just watch the humidity so it doesn't spike too high, though with a big beefy incubator like yours that shouldn't be an issue!
> 
> I love your nest baskets, they are too cool. What a cute little set up that is.


Thanks! Chan's mother is the one who came up with the idea for them. I was going to use 20 liter (5 gallon) buckets with lids cut in half. Her idea is much more original.

I have forty-one other chickens in that same chicken house. We will sell them (meat chickens) tomorrow or the following day. I will then have that chicken house divided in two. One side for each rooster and his four hens. When the little guys are a bit bigger, I will move them to a new house.

One question: What do you mean by "lock them down"?


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## Fiere

Lockdown is when you close the incubator and theoretically don't open it until the chicks are all hatched. Because the humidity needs to be kept high at this point, opening the door even for a second can cause it to crash. So you out them into "lockdown" - no one in, no one out. Mind there are sometimes when you have to sneak a chick out or what have you, and when you do that you need hot water at the ready to top off the reservoirs and get the humidity back up. I have a table top incubator which I will out into the bathroom for lockdown, so if I need to get a chick out, I'll run the hot shower for a few minutes and raise the humidity of the whole room.


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## Chans_Farm

Fiere said:


> Lockdown is when you close the incubator and theoretically don't open it until the chicks are all hatched. Because the humidity needs to be kept high at this point, opening the door even for a second can cause it to crash. So you out them into "lockdown" - no one in, no one out. Mind there are sometimes when you have to sneak a chick out or what have you, and when you do that you need hot water at the ready to top off the reservoirs and get the humidity back up. I have a table top incubator which I will out into the bathroom for lockdown, so if I need to get a chick out, I'll run the hot shower for a few minutes and raise the humidity of the whole room.


Gotcha. Thanks. Okay. We will put them in as soon as Chan gets home from the store. Shouldn't be too long now. I will mark this as day one and see if I can hatch my own clutch, with the help of modern electronics.

NOTE: June 12th, Thursday evening, Day 1 for incubation.


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## back2simplelife

Chans_Farm said:


> Thanks! Chan's mother is the one who came up with the idea for them. I was going to use 20 liter (5 gallon) buckets with lids cut in half. Her idea is much more original.
> 
> I have forty-one other chickens in that same chicken house. We will sell them (meat chickens) tomorrow or the following day. I will then have that chicken house divided in two. One side for each rooster and his four hens. When the little guys are a bit bigger, I will move them to a new house.
> 
> One question: What do you mean by "lock them down"?


Also, when you stop rotating the eggs. If you have an electric turner you will also shut it off for lockdown on day 18. Good luck!


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## Chans_Farm

back2simplelife said:


> Also, when you stop rotating the eggs. If you have an electric turner you will also shut it off for lockdown on day 18. Good luck!


Oddly enough, they do not have an on / off switch for the electric rotating / tilting motor. The only thing I can do at that point is to set it for 99 hours (~ 4 days). Problem is, I will have to do something with the duck eggs her mom talked us into putting in the incubator at the same time.


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## Fiere

Can you unhook a lower platform from the auto turner? Maybe that's what the disco lamp was for LOL 

It doesn't surprise me, a lot of those big cabinet incubators are designed to be used with a "hatcher" which is basically the same thing except it doesn't tilt and has drawers for the eggs to lie in to be hatched. The idea being you incubate them in the bator then put them in the hatcher for lockdown.


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## back2simplelife

might be time to build or find a hatchery.. then you can take the chicken eggs out on day 18 for lock down and the ducks can go on. It's just like the bator only no turner really. Also, you can focus on getting the humidity up in the hatchery. Just remember it isn't the amount of water, it's how big around/surface the "dish" is. so like a 6 inch bowl is going to put more humidity in it than like a tall water drinking glass. If you can't this hatch I would def recommend one for futures, especially with hatchings at different times. Another plus is that you keep your bator easier to clean!


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## Chans_Farm

Fiere said:


> Can you unhook a lower platform from the auto turner? Maybe that's what the disco lamp was for LOL
> 
> It doesn't surprise me, a lot of those big cabinet incubators are designed to be used with a "hatcher" which is basically the same thing except it doesn't tilt and has drawers for the eggs to lie in to be hatched. The idea being you incubate them in the bator then put them in the hatcher for lockdown.


No, unfortunately. All three shelf frames are locked together with rivets. When one moves, they all move. I can, however, remove individual plastic shelves. I can set one of them on the floor of the incubator when it comes close to time for them to hatch - and to be in lock down.

I guess we may have gone a bit overboard on the size of the incubator. But, we figured we would be expanding our operation and didn't want to buy one now, only to have to buy another one later.

The "disco lamp", I learned, (supposedly) has some effect on humidity? When the humidity drops below the minimum setting, it powers the disco light.



back2simplelife said:


> might be time to build or find a hatchery.. then you can take the chicken eggs out on day 18 for lock down and the ducks can go on. It's just like the bator only no turner really. Also, you can focus on getting the humidity up in the hatchery. Just remember it isn't the amount of water, it's how big around/surface the "dish" is. so like a 6 inch bowl is going to put more humidity in it than like a tall water drinking glass. If you can't this hatch I would def recommend one for futures, especially with hatchings at different times. Another plus is that you keep your bator easier to clean!


Yeah, while I am far from being a weather man, I am learning fast about humidity. Odd what you learn while raising chickens.


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## back2simplelife

I swear you have to live by the motto "live and learn" with chickens! My first hatch, I completely forgot about lockdown and just kept putting eggs in every few days.. oops! So we built a quick styrofoam hatchery that worked so well, we replaced out LG still air with it! You will be fine.. just remember everything is a learning experience!


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