Avian Aqua Miser: Automatic, poop-free chicken waterers

Maintaining high humidity in an incubator during hatch

Wet, new chickAround day 19, when the first chicks could potentially start to pip, it's time to raise the humidity in your incubator to 65% or more.  High humidity during hatch is essential to lubricate your chicks as they do the hard work of wiggling around, pecking their way out of their shells.  At the same time, you need to keep the vent at least a third of the way open because these hard-working chicks need more airflow to feed their struggles.  But the open vent tends to lower the incubator's humidity, so that's the solution?

Increasing humidity in an incubator with a wicking clothYou can buy evaporating card to stick in your incubator's wells, but the cheaper method is just to use a piece of cloth.  If you place part of the cloth or evaporating card in the well and let the rest sit along the bottom of the incubator, water will wick up into the extra surface area, resulting in more evaporation and higher humidity.

For an even bigger dose of humidity to counteract the vapor lost when you open the lid, heat up some water until it's steaming but is still just cool enough to stick your hand in.  I poured some of this warm water into the wells every time I opened the lid of my Brinsea Octagon 20 incubator, which meant that the humidity rebounded within a minute of me opening and then reclosing the lid.

Opening the incubator lidMost websites will tell you to be as hands-off as possible during the hatch, opening the lid only once every six to eight hours.  Now that I've had a bit of experience, though, I disagree.  I've learned the hard way that if a newly hatched chick rolls a neighbor egg so that its pipping hole is facing the floor, the chick still in its shell can expire before you're allowed to open the lid again.  Knowing some tricks to maintain high humidity while still being allowed to open the lid seems to be key to higher hatch rates.

Our chicken waterer keeps chicks healthy from day 1.


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Hi,

My Scots Dumpy Eggs are due to hatch in the next 3 days so was so pleased to find this site especially as I'm using the Octagon 20 too and was concerned about keeping the humidity up. Many Thanks! Fingers crossed now for a good hatch!!

Comment by Dawn Wednesday afternoon, December 21st, 2011
Good luck! I hope you have a great hatch rate!
Comment by anna late Wednesday evening, December 21st, 2011

I have sarama chicks hatching and also have the octagon 20. I have now filled both water trophs but the himidity is now quite high (77). Can high humidity be dangerous at this stage? The vent is fully open?

Please help.

Comment by Amelia Sunday afternoon, April 29th, 2012
Amelia --- Your chicks are probably out of the shell by now, so maybe you can comment again and let us know if you had any trouble? I don't think you should --- more lubrication is generally better at the hatch stage, as long as you don't close the vent and lose the air flow.
Comment by anna Monday evening, April 30th, 2012






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