Newbie - Raising humidity final days

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Sarahscotland

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Hi everyone,

I am a newbie to the board and would like to thank you all for the fantastic advice posted on here. I have spent many an hour over the last month or so reading through the many topics covered.
I am now onto day 17 of my first ever hatch. I am teacher and am doing this in my classroom. I have a Brinsea Polyhatch and 18 chicken eggs. Over the course on the incubation I have had issues with humidity which I have noticed is pretty common. I covered two of the ventilation holes and filled one pan of water to begin with. I have been using two different Hydrometers which I understand can be pretty unreliable so wasnt paying too much attention to them until day 11-12 when they both began to drop quite significantly. I then filled the second pan of water and that seemed to stabilise things.
My question is now that rightly or wrongly I've already filled both pans of water what would be the best method of raising humidity for the final few days? And should ths be done on day 18 or 19?

Many thanks for any suggestions
 
If you need to raise your humidity higher, I have found an easy way of doing it, is to have the end of 'J' cloth or a small kitchen towel in the water and lay the rest of the cloth flat underneath the tray. I don't know if that would work in a polyhatch as I have never used or studied one.

Humidity is raised by the amount of surface water, rather than the depth of the water. :)
 
Good suggestion from Philcott. The King Suro uses a sponge to disipate the water which is pump fed onto it. Other members have suggested low humidity during the first stages isn't a bad thing at all and can improve hatch rates. Guess it depends on your housing. Our humidity is high because we live in an 1830's place with porous handmade brickwork. Modern houses will be centrally heated and very low humidity, to the point you get sore throats from the dryness. We never topped up the reservoirs in one incubator when we hatched and the Suro never needed the little bottle filling either.
 
I've just successfully hatched my second batch of quail in a Brinsea Mini advance, which has no hygrometer. On both occasions I followed advice from others to hatch dry until the last 2 days, ie no water added at all, and then top up the pots when the turning ceased and the eggs were starting to twitch. The inci has been in a spare bedroom and although the house is centrally heated I do use the radiators to dry clothes during the colder months, which helps to balance the humidity. Both hatches produced strong, normal chicks which all hatched in the minimum time with no problems at all.

By the way, welcome to the Forum, Sarah, we shall be interested to hear how you get on.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I am learning more and more every day. I've read a lot about running the incubator dry until the final days and wish I'd know about this sooner. Would you advice me to leave it as it is then with the two pans filled as they have been for the last week or make attempts to raise the humidity further? I'm not sure the J Cloth idea will work with my incubator as you can't actually see the pans of water. They are directly under the tray with eggs on top. I'd have to take all the eggs out first to set this up. Not really sure what to do at this stage
 
Humidity is currently sitting at about 35%. Turner was switched off today. Really feel like I should try to raise it tomorrow as I don't want to keep opening the lid so close to hatching. Just dont know best way to go about this. Wet Sponges? But would I have to keep opening the lid to wet them? I'm guessing they'd dry out pretty quickly. Or should I put them in shallow bowls of water? My only worry with this is that they would be in right next to the eggs
 
I wouldn't do anything until the eggs start to chip. Then try with wet sponges or better still, the method suggested by philcott using a J cloth which has been tested.
You could also try leaving them as they are as they will probably hatch anyway but that's a bigger decision for you to make.
 
Thanks Chuck! Ok I'll hold off until I see something going on in there. Only problem with the j cloth suggestion is that my water trays lie directly underneath the eggs so are very hard to get to without distrubing the eggs. Think I would be too worried about spoiling things at the final hurdle to just leave humidity as it is unless it starts to rise itself. What would you suggest is the optimum for hatching?
 
So difficult to give you the answers you are looking for as so many of us have veered away what is recommended simply because that didn't woek for us.
If you're in a classroom, it will be heated and therefore dry. You could try putting some pots of water around the incubator but I'm clutching at straws here. If you decide to use pots of water inside, take care, as the chicks could get in them and drown.
 
Haha thats the problem with us teachers. We just want to someone to give us the answers. I'm starting to understand how incubating doesnt work like that and really is based on indiviual outcomes and experiences. Thanks anyway Chuck. I'm just gonna go with my gut instinct and wait for first one to chip then add something to raise humdity slighty. Then just cross my fingers and hope for the best!!!
 
My little Brinsea inci has a plastic mesh cover to fit over the water pots. Maybe you could cover a pot of water with some sort of netting and fix it round the edge so it can evaporate but the chicks can't get in?
Do you have any reason to be concerned that the inci won't just do its job when you raise the humidity setting? First hatch is always going to be a bit problematic but if you stick to the instructions at least you'd have a sensible base to reflect on the outcomes.
 
My incubator doesn't have a humidity setting. I think it's pretty old school. Instructions say to fill one pan then the other in the lead up to the hatch. I had to fill both due to low humidity.

Update - I am on day 19 and just heard a little cheep. On closer inspection there are some tiny bits of broken eggshell under one of the eggs. Due to the angle thats all I can see. Is day 19 gonna be too early?

Help!!! Should I raise humidity? It has gone up to 40% from about 30% this morning
 
Do you have to take the lid off in order to raise humidity, because as soon as you do that the humidity will go down? With my incubator I can squirt some warm water through the ventilation hole with a pipette which will raise the humidity without losing any in the process. If you can't do it without taking off the lid I'd say don't touch it - sit on your hands if you need to. Also it can take over a day for the chicks to get out of the shell, it's quite a long and exhausting process for them (and you!). Good luck with your hatch.
 
I agree - opening the incubator on the offchance that you can help at this stage is more likely to be counterproductive in lowering humidity and temperature. The instructions with my inci say that opening it when they are hatching should be avoided whenever possible, and never more often than once every 6 hours as it takes this time for things to stabilise. Once the first chick is hatching, or drying out, it doesn't need the sudden shock of cold air coming in when the inci is opened. At least you have signs that something is happening and hatching is under way, this sounds much better to me than waiting until a day or so after the hatch is due. From what I've read, too much humidity especially in the early stages is more likely to lead to a poor hatch than too little, and if this has happened, you can't do anything about it now. Not much you can do at this stage, and intervening may spoil what will probably be a good hatch. I wonder if you counted the day you put the eggs in the inci as Day 1 or Day 0? If you called it Day 1, then today is actually Day 20, so not very early at all.

PS also remember that, as they hatch, they create more humidity for the ones who are yet to emerge, as the first ones dry out.
 
Think you need to use the J cloth method when they pip otherwise they will stick to the membrane when they hatch.
 
The thing is we all have different experiences and you just have to work out which is best for you and your incubator. If they are hatching a little early check your temperature, if it has been running slightly high they will hatch early and sometimes quite quickly (and noisily!) :D

I only add water at the stage you are at, meaning when I see evidence of external pipping. I then increase to about 60%. When a chick hatches, they will raise the humidity for a while naturally.

So I agree with Chris, full up a pan, or whatever water container your incubator uses, then leave well alone! :D
 
Maybe should have sat on my hands! I opened the incubator and added the j cloth to the pan underneath. It is dipped in the water with the rest damp lying flat. Closed it straight away and didnt touch the egg that had pipped. Humidity returned within 10 minutes and was sitting at 38%. Hopefully this will rise further. I've had to leave the eggs to it now and school was locked up at 6pm. I dont have late access until tomorrow. Feel a bit like I've abandoned them but at least I won't interfere now. Will see what happens tomorrow.
I counted first day as day 0. Maybe due to temp problems the internal temp was reading 39 throughout but I added a digital one in the ventilation hole and that was at 40.4 most of the time!!!

Oh well nothing to do now but wait!!! Thanks for advice
 
I have my first chick! Came into school this morning to find it fully out of the shell and cheeping away.
It seems to be fine, making lots of noise though (is this normal?, I think foxy said it was for early arrivals). He is moving around a lot and crashing into the other eggs. To think I was so gentle with them.

Humidity is still 40% but I'm guessing advice would be just to leave it as the first one came out no problem?
 
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