Egg Update!

I wanted to give you an update on our eggs in the incubator.  The temperature has remained between 99.1 and 100.4, which is perfect.  I try to keep the humidity (before "lockdown") to about 40%.  Sometimes, the humidity drops.  Why do you think that would be?  It's because the water that you put into the bottom of the incubator all evaporated away!  You have to add some more water to the little trough in the bottom of the incubator to raise the humidity level.  You can see in the picture that the temperature inside the incubator is 98.8.  The reason that it is registering a little low is because the thermometer was on its side, down low.  Do you know why the temperature would be lower at the bottom of the incubator than it is at the top?  Heat rises!  In order to get an accurate reading, you need to keep the thermometer at the same level in the incubator as the eggs.  You can also see in the picture that the humidity was 30%.  The hydrometer let me know that I needed to add some more water to the trough.

I do not like to move the eggs very much... and I needed a way to add water to the little trough without disturbing things inside the incubator.  So, I made a little funnel contraption out of a baby bottle nipple and a fat smoothie straw!  This lets me add water exactly where I need to, without even having to open the incubator.  During lockdown, I can slide the straw right into the air vent hole and add any water that I need to!

I took another picture of the hydrometer/thermometer to show how the humidity rose when I added the warm water.  But, as you can see, it rose too much!  This is because the water was a bit warmer than it should have been.  Warm water evaporates more quickly into the air.  So, I just took the little red cap off of  the air vent at the top of the incubator to decrease the humidity.   We will candle the eggs on Thursday, which will be day 14 of incubation!