Incubator problem

[Lesley P]

Hello, we have been keeping chickens and bantams for many years and recently purchased some hatching eggs to introduce new breeds to our flock. We have a Heka Favorit 168 incubator which has worked brilliantly every year. We put the eggs in the incubator as we didn't have enough broodies to put them under. The temperature is at a constant 37.8 degrees and humidity was set at 53%. Over the weekend the humidity suddenly dropped to 22%, we checked the water flow, which is perfect and reset the humidity on the panel but it still keeps dropping. We have put a small dish of water with cotton wool inside to increase the humidity for now.
We have ordered a hygrometer to establish the correct humidity in case the panel reading is wrong. Having searched online for replacement parts in case we need a new panel it seems genuine Heka parts are no longer available in England. Does anyone have any ideas please or has anyone had the same problem? Many thanks

 

[JoshB]

Welcome and sorry to hear about your incubator! I haven't had the same problem but I think it's a great idea to get a separate hygrometer, see what it reads, and go from there.
It sounds like you may need to replace the entire unit if they don't sell parts for them. Maybe you can run it with the new hygrometer in place of the old one but I'm not that familiar with your setup.

 

[Lesley P]

Welcome and sorry to hear about your incubator! I haven't had the same problem but I think it's a great idea to get a separate hygrometer, see what it reads, and go from there.
It sounds like you may need to replace the entire unit if they don't sell parts for them. Maybe you can run it with the new hygrometer in place of the old one but I'm not that familiar with your setup.

Thanks very much Josh. We have managed to increase the humidity to the correct level, suddenly the reading on the panel went up so it seems there may not be a problem with the panel. We're not going to trust it though and the hygrometer arrives tomorrow so we'll see how it goes. Thanks again for replying so quickly.

 

[chrismahon]

As Josh said, it's a good idea to have a means of checking the electronic readings on the incubator, because very often they are wrong. Both our incubators have mercury thermometers and the humidity is controlled by filling a water trough (or both for piping and hatching), so nothing fancy at all and that has been sufficient for good hatch rates. The key to the first 18 days is to watch the air sac develop. This happens with a low humidity which allows the egg to breath out the water content of the yolk. That depends on the porosity of the egg shell which varies with breeds and strains, so a set humidity figure won't necessarily work. We had Wyandotte eggs that needed to be around 30%. The egg sac can be checked when the eggs are candled and it is very important that it does develop fully because that is the space that lets the chick manoeuvre to pip. If the air sac doesn't form the chick will over-develop and won't be able to move and you have the condition called 'dead in shell'. I have never been in the situation that a low humidity lost chicks, only a high humidity, so if in doubt stay low and good luck with your hatch.