Thermometers

[Broadwaters]

Hi all

I am currently running a Novital Covatutto 162 automatic

I misplaced the original thermometer so have a Komodo digital with the sensor down inside, near to my hydrometer and a cheap normal one

The cheap one reads 36.5 and the one on the hydrometer reads 35.5 while the digital Komodo one reads 37.5

Which one should I trust?!

Regards
Caroline

 

[Icemaiden]

An ancient Chinese proverb would say
"A poultry keeper with one thermometer always knows the temperature. A poultry keeper with two is never quite sure"...

Not very helpful for you, but very true!

 

[chrismahon]

These are massive differences Broadwaters! I wouldn't trust the digital all and my preference is for the cheap one. Reason I say that is because the thermometer on our Covatuttu was bang on and matched our Wilko cheapie, as near as was possible to tell. Guess you will need some more thermometers to check them before you try hatching. I just don't trust Chines electronics with seemingly accurate digital readouts- just because they have lots of digits after the decimal place means nothing to an Engineer, I want to see calibration records.

 

[Broadwaters]

It’s tempting to just trust the middle reading but so frustrating!
I guess I’ll just have to try a batch then increase temp
And compare hatch rates ?

 

[rick]

You can get medical digital thermometers very cheaply from the supermarket (for measuring baby's temp etc.) The range is very limited (32 to 40 degC or something like that) but they have to be reliable to the tolerance printed on the box and should be good enough for calibration.

 

[British Raj]

I have had fun and games with the temperature on a cheap borrowed incubator (because my poor little bantam hen laid 17 eggs so I am leaving 10 under her and the rest in the incubator). I used a £5 thermometer for humans and was quite pleased to note that if I placed the thermometer bulb next to the temperature probe that is part of the incubator, the readings were within a 10th of a degree of each other. The more serious problem is wide variations from one part of the incubator to the other. have created some baffles made of card to redistribute the warmth evenly and that has worked so far.