We had a rough start. Learned a tough lesson on relyong on one gauge to be right. We lost 2 due to low humidity. Our gauge said 99% the whole way, it is not accurate. We put a 2nd gauge in. I will not be playing the lottery any time soon. The pairing was cinnamon to pastel. The 2 that died were pastels. The 3 that lived 2 pastels and a normal. No cinnamon or pewters.
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Sorry for your losses. It can be tough to get it right the first time. I had a thermostat malfucntion with my 1st clutch and I lost 2 eggs during incubation and had 1 baby fail to hatch because it was badly kinked.
At least you know not to rely on that gage again. You’ll be better prepared next time.
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Curious if you’d be willing to share the experience on the forum. How did you notice the issue, did you try anything that worked/didnt? I think the humidity issue is a tough part to get right on the incubation on the first try.
This is my first year as well and I even went overkill and put 3 different temp/humidity gages in the egg box, all read 99%. But on day 5 the eggs started dimpling notably. I am doing semi-substrateless with oversaturated perlite and an egg crate on top. I went for the press-n-seal solution and they plumped back up over the next week. There’s still some small airflow where the probes go under the press-n-seal and I’m doing an air exchange every 3 days. 30 days in today and still looking & candling good.
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We built the incubator out of a mini fridge, ran it empty for 2 months, mean empty as an empty tub with the cords inside. It looked perfect. 89 degrees and about 70% humidty. With the empty tub, we just wanted to see if it held steady and everything is working. The last 2 weeks before the eggs were laid we set the tub up with vermiculite using the squeeze method. The tub in the last 2 weeks held 89 degrees and 99%. The gauge never changed humidity through the entire incubation period so there was no reason to worry. At day 40 we started daily very fast air exchanges, i never pulled the tub completely out. Hindsight i probably should have at least once to check vermiculite for moisture. It was open incubator, open tub lid for just 1 second then close it all back up took less then 5 seconds. At day 54 I did my exchange but noticed holes in the eggs. Yay finally. So we go to cut the eggs and they feel dry, vermiculute doesnt look wet. There is no way it was 99% humidty not possible. I found 2 dead. The surviving three are doing great. Very little though. This is my new tub for my clutch due this week. I will also be using press n seal I found the probkem too late.
and my favorite baby, her colors are coming in. My friend is going to teach me how to sex them so she may be a he
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