Wooden Incubator and Humidity

[Oregon Swedes]

The son who promised to build me a new redwood incubator and hasn't gotten around to it yet, found me an old David Bradley from Sears and bought it for me.

The seller says it is made of cedar. It doesn't look like cedar. Someone else said "red fir". So I don't know what it is made of, but it looks like a redwood incubator.

I've had it plugged in for a week. The temperature stays spot on. It doesn't vary by even a tenth of a degree. However, I can't get the humidity up.

I've got 2 large pans of water in the top, and it runs about 26%. If I spray the inside walls with a squirt bottle, I can get it up to 30%.

It's been sitting out in a barn, and this is desert, so I expected the walls to absorb a lot of moisture, but it seems to me like it should be re-hydrated by now.

Those of you with redwood incubators, is there a trick to getting the humidity up?

I've got 6 half cooked goose eggs that I would sure like to move over from my little incubator.

[jungle]

I have two of these machines and really love them. I have no problem keeping the humidity high in them but it does take a few days to hydrate the wood if it has not been run for a while. A week should have been enough time. Where are the pans? There is a spot on the top, above the egg trays, that holds the pans of water. This allows the heated air to flow across the pans first. Even still, it should be holding more moisture than that. I would suggest trying a couple other hygrometers to see if the one you are using is off. Spraying the walls with water should certainly raise the humidity up higher than 30%, even if it is inly temporary. I would strongly suspect the hygrometer is off. Also, you can close the little sliding vents down pretty much all the way. There is enough air flow in that thing to keep things ventilated enough. Although I am in a more humid area you still should have much better moisture retention that what your gauge is showing. For waht it's worth, I have not used a hygrometer in my DB for the past couple years. I just keep the pan pull during incubation and hatch and do not have a problem. It always feels moist and humid when I open the door and the chicks do great. These machines are great at hatching.