Calculating the ventilation intake of an incubator or hatcher
Incorrect ventilation is a common problem in hatcheries. There are several ways to check if ventilation rates are meeting the hatchery’s needs. This is how to calculate the incubator or hatcher air intake with an anemometer.
Air Intake per hour = Air speed (m/s) x Cross section of ventilation hole (m) x 3600 (1hour) x 1000 (convert to litres)
Calculate the cross sectional area = π x (diameter/2)^2
where π = 3.14
A fertile egg at day 18 requires 4 litres of air per day. If you have an incubator or hatcher with 3000 eggs then you will need 12 000 litres of air intake per day.
An example of a 25mm air ventilation hole with an air speed of 0.5 m/s will supply
0.5 x (3.14*(0.025/2)^2) x 3600 x 1000= 883 litres per hour x 24 =21 195 litres per day. Here you can see that each fertile egg will have available 7 (21 195 /3000) litres of fresh air.
