The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: clydesdaleclopper on April 10, 2014, 06:55:37 pm
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I am running my incubator dry but it is still at 55%RH. Any ideas how I can bring it down. It's in the tack room so I don't have a great deal of control over the humidity in the room.
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have you added water to it?
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No I am running it dry
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maybe change rooms?
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Open vents fully
Also check humidity meter is reading okay
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Vents are fully open. I have 2 humidity readers so the reading is correct. I can't put it anywhere else so is there a way of getting any of that moisture out of the air?
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I saw cheap dehumidifiers at B & M the other day - would that work?
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Well we put bowls of salt on our little old caravan and that sucks it out.... We having opposite prob! ours is fully topped up and struggling to keep over 40!
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Where do you live? You can buy those little sachets of stuff that absorbs water they include with electrical goods.
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Oh is that the silica gel sachets? I might have some of them around somewhere. I'll try those.
Dojango - what is B & M?
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That's the one - trouble is if they've been lying around, they may already be 'saturated' - already filled to capacity with water. Not sure where you'd get them fresh though.
Or maybe you could heat them gently - not sure whether that would mean some of the water would vapourise or whether there's some chemical reaction taken place.
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You can dry the sachets out to use again in a low oven. Good luck!
:fc:
Helen
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Oh is that the silica gel sachets? I might have some of them around somewhere. I'll try those.
Dojango - what is B & M?
A budget store that took over the Focus shops, maybe mainly Scotland, but i think I saw them in Aldi's as well.
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I am not an experienced hatcher, so a dumb question: what's the problem about high humidity in the incy? I thought it helped to keep the shells easier to break out of.
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If the humidity is too high the chick can be too big and the air space too small to allow the chick manoevering room to pip. The chick can drown in the shell or end up with deformed feet and legs (happened to one of ours on our first hatch). You have to weigh regularly to check enough weight is lost and candle to monitor the air space. We are on our second hatch at the moment this time with goose eggs which need to lose about 14% of their weight before day 28 (for hens 13% by about day 19). The humidity is put up very high during the last two or three days so the membranes don't dry out and set hard imprisoning the chick when it starts pipping. It can make for a fraught time when little lives are at stake!
Helen
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SlimJim as Waddy says humidity only needs to be high for the last few days once internal pipping has happened. As it is early in the year the eggs tend to be less porous and so it is more difficult for them to lose the required weight to allow the air sac to be big enough.
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Currently, I've got an outside humidity reading of 74%, indoors it's 55%.
You're in the hands of the weather gods, and the only way to solve the problem would be by using a dehumidifier.
I think it's quite important that you not only rely on the humidity reading of the incubator, but also to have a separate humidity reader located elsewhere in the room to read the ambient humidity.
The fact the incubator is located in a tack room may be the answer to the high humidity reading - leather breathes, and will also attract moisture. Think of a bridle hung over a period of time without use? It doesn't take that long before mould spores become visible. Similarly, in a overly dry atmosphere the leather will dry out and become unworkable unless we put 'moisture' back in.
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I think a dehumidifier is probably the best option but I think it would be too expensive.
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CC, try buying dehumidifying resin sachets from Ebay and the like. Put a couple inside the incubator and it will bring the humidity down. They can then be regenerated in a warm oven and re-used.
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just an idle thought .
Would a black heat bulb inside a big cardboard box set over the incubator make enough heat to dry the air a wee bit to bring the humidity down enough ?
We have one of the Delonghi type dehumidifiers in the caravan on a two hour on 6 hrs off time switch cycle .
It fair drags out the moisture in the air if it is set to high .. they cost about £95 on eBay .
We also use it to dry big item washing hung over a table type drying rack .