Hi,

Ok, so it's my first time breeding and, although I have read and prepared as much as humanly possible, when I finally got eggs I start having more questions and doubts on how to best keep the incubation temps.

When you incubate eggs, how much of a difference do you notice between the air temperature and the actual temperature on the surface of the eggs?

Here's my dilemma. I started setting up an incubator over a month ahead of getting any eggs. I had it running and tweaked a lot until I was confident that I could keep a consistent temperature around 89 degrees inside the egg box (air temp, probe close to the substrate). Eggs came, and temps were reading at 88.9. Perfect I put the eggs in and left for work. When I came back, I noticed it had gone up to 89.5. Nothing to worry about, I thought, as the eggs might have warmed up the air themselves.

I had also read that some people prefer to measure the temp on the surface of the eggs. So I took my temp gun and measured that. To my dismay, they were at 92-93 degrees, with the max reading reaching 94!
I immediately started lowering the thermostat a bit over the next 24 hours. Now the air temperature inside the box reads at 87.4, but the egg surface is still at 90-91.

I'm really worried I might be cooking them (if I haven't already), but I'm not sure if I should drop the air temps any lower.
So, I'm looking for the advice of more experienced breeders. Where do you usually measure the temps when incubating? And if you measure the eggs, do you find such a difference between the air temp and the eggs?

Thanks in advance!