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.

 

[Lesley P]

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.

Thanks Chris, when the hygrometer arrived we found that the temperature was exactly as shown on the panel but the humidity was higher than on the display. So we now know the humidity reading on the panel is wrong so we are ignoring it. We managed to reduce the humidity by adjusting the setting and the air valves thank goodness. We will just go by the hygrometer from now on.
The incubator has been excellent for many years and we have always had a successful hatch rate but it looks like we shall need a replacement unit for next year.
Thanks for your advice.

 

[chrismahon]

It doesn't sound to me like you need a new incubator, because you have resolved the problem without one. However it is always a good idea to have a backup unit ready at hand to switch on. I remember when we had the misfortune to live in the Dordogne for a year and try hatching eggs there. The power cuts were so frequent that when we went out we switched the incubator over to an inverter and battery supply. One cut was three days, which meant all the batteries were flat and we had to run the car to power the incubator and re-charge a battery!

 

[chrismahon]

I forgot to mention another problem we had there. A power 'spike' blew one of the components on the control board, so the heater stopped working, fortunately during the day. This could happen in the UK as well. A dash to town to buy the only incubator they had in stock and the hatch was saved. Since then we have always plugged incubators into a surge protection socket, which we bought in the UK for the TV but since used for hatching. Brinsea were very helpful and provided dimensions of their control boards so I could pick one that would fit into the Spanish incubator.