incubator ideas! post your ideas for home made incubators, whether they work or not~

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fried green eggs said:
I couldn't see if the wafer in the WH thermostat I bought was bad but, it wasn't going to work for a bator. I did order a gqf thermostat for my hatching igloo and a extra wafer - just in case one of them needs it. I took apart a small crockpot today with 120 watt heating element and plan to use that as heat sorce for my hatcher bator. The crockpot has a bi-metal thermostat so, i may save that for later.
put eggs in my incubator bator tonight and will be putting more eggs in on Saturday when they arrive. I have a large window on the lid and with the access door on the front, I can change a light bulb or even the wafer - if I need to. The nightlight helps lightbulbs cycle less often and helps me see it's still working fine.
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Looks very nice, I hope you get many good hatches from this incubator.



Just a tip, during the summer if you are incubating, you will need to move your incubator.

Right there in front of the air conditioner is a bad place for an incubator.


I don't know how well the seal is on your plexi glass door, but I recommend getting some foam tape. If you go to the hardware store, and ask for it, they will show you exactly where it is.

I still don't know what it is called, but I am pretty sure it is used to sealing doors and windows. I have never had to use it on anything other than sealing my cabinet incubator door.
 
fried green eggs said:
galanie said:
I don't drill any holes at all.
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I'm glad it works for others but, I tried flipping the WH thermostat I have so, the wafer was towards the light bulb at 3", 2", 1 1/2" even 1" away and still got way too much flux in thermometers and in the egg thermometer hygrometer set where eggs will be. Maybe I got a bad one but, I'm done fooling with it.:th I ordered another GQF Wafer Thermostat and a extra wafer for it. :yesss:
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By saying "wafer" when referring to a hot water heater thermostat you're confusing me a bit because there are hot water heater thermostats and then there are wafer thermostats. I refer only to the lower hot water heater thermostat. I'm assuming by "wafer" you mean the metal back of it? As for the video referred to later, I'm not sure which you mean since the one in my sig doesn't refer to drilling any holes in anything. But if you really had the back of the thing as close as 1" to the bulb and experienced wide swings, either it was a bad one or you didn't wait long enough. Incubators often have wide temp swings the first 24 hours. This is why it's recommended to set one up and run it at least 24 hours before you use it. Mine does as well. After it has run a day or so, it levels out. If you try to keep messing with it before then you'll drive yourself nuts. Give it more time.

On the other hand, I understand your frustration. Been there.
 
Lotsa nie ideas and tips! That foam tape is awesome! I bought some for my latest creation.

Whoa, it rains a lot! Muuuuch more than last year. My coop would always flood no matter what. We built a new one last november and OMFG! It's awesome! It only leaks in a couple spots and that's coz the tin sucks. It's made with chainlink fence so it won't ROT like chicken wire.

Aaanyways, back on topic, has anyone had any success with their homemade incubators? That's what I wanna know. Any good success when placing over a dozen eggs into it. My best was a 10/32 eggs for my GHD hatch. Roughly 30%. 2 ded, so actually I had 12 hatch.
 
We built a simple incubator from a small styrofoam chest, using a plastic window lid from a donut box and a 25 watt light bulb. We have a piece of folded metal wire with a cloth laid over it at one end that we keep wet for humidity. Nothing fancy. About as cheap and simple as you can get. Using a temp/humidity gauge we bought at Wally world for $9. Today was day 7 on the eggs and we candled and have FIVE out of 12 that have positive growth in them. Five of the eggs are brown so we don't know whether they are fertile or not because my light isn't strong enough to candle them. But all but two of my white eggs are doing great and the other two may be fertile as well. Our temps are staying between 97 and 101 though we've had spikes to 104 and dips to 92 with humidity between 50 and 65%. We don't have a fan or any special tape or any high tech temp gauges and we keep the lid propped open by about 1/2 inch at the end with the light bulb. Go figure. Our eggs were at least a week old when we started and had just been sitting on the kitchen counter that whole time. Honestly, we didn't think we'd have anything at all grow so 5/12 is pretty good.
 
galanie, I have personally never used a wafer as I prefer HW's. If you ever take apart a HW thermostat you will find a small "wafer" if that's what you want to call it. You can look on the back side of the HW and look through the biggest hole in the metal part . there's a small symbal shaped piece of metal that pops back and forth with the heat and makes and breaks the contacts of the thermostat. You can put a small screwdriver bit through the hole and push on this thing and it will bounce back as you let go. That's what will turn your light bulb on and off.
 
kellyn said:
Aaanyways, back on topic, has anyone had any success with their homemade incubators? That's what I wanna know. Any good success when placing over a dozen eggs into it. My best was a 10/32 eggs for my GHD hatch. Roughly 30%. 2 ded, so actually I had 12 hatch.
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I usually get a 99% hatch rate out of the incubators I build.... But then I have been hatching chickens,ducks,turkeys and guineas for 40 years
 
Hi I thought i'd jump in here. I made an incubator out of a toybox. There are two windows cut out of the top and top flips open. The edge is sealed with a foam weather stripping tape. The front has a door which opens down to access things underneath easier when I have the trays of eggs inside. Its 33" long, 13"wide, and 13" deep. I'm using a zoomed reptipro thermostat which has two outlets for two heatsources (which is extra good if you're using bulbs, so if one dies the other bulb will do majority of the work). Inside is lined with a reflective insulating material. I have a large PC fan. The heat source is a flexwatt heat tape thats made for reptiles. I used the wrong one when I first did it and it couldn't quite handle the size of the box so I have 2 more coming that I'm going to use instead. They will put out more heat and are smaller. I will be using both strips. My question is I don't know where I should put the strips, it was orginally at the back of the box, but now i'm thinking of moving it to floor or top. The problem with the top is that you'd see it through the windows a bit. I could sure use any advice. IF you see anything you think is bad, let me know!!!! I'm willing to take allll constructive criticisms. Here is another thread I started regarding it! https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...toybox-incubator-and-flexwatt-post-13-help/10

Oh and I did try to hatch in it once, and had all my eggs develop but all but 2 died about day 10. But that was from the mail, and I had the other half of the eggs set in my LG and I had about the same hatch rate, so I think it works, just barely though. I want it to be awesome....because it does look pretty **** good.
 
Ours is built and we are stabilizing the temps and humidity now. Im getting excited! Will post pics soon.
I think it will be pretty great! Hope i get the details righ, and dont kill them. That part is pretty scary for me to think about...
 
kvmommy said:
Hi I thought i'd jump in here. I made an incubator out of a toybox. There are two windows cut out of the top and top flips open. The edge is sealed with a foam weather stripping tape. The front has a door which opens down to access things underneath easier when I have the trays of eggs inside. Its 33" long, 13"wide, and 13" deep. I'm using a zoomed reptipro thermostat which has two outlets for two heatsources (which is extra good if you're using bulbs, so if one dies the other bulb will do majority of the work). Inside is lined with a reflective insulating material. I have a large PC fan. The heat source is a flexwatt heat tape thats made for reptiles. I used the wrong one when I first did it and it couldn't quite handle the size of the box so I have 2 more coming that I'm going to use instead. They will put out more heat and are smaller. I will be using both strips. My question is I don't know where I should put the strips, it was orginally at the back of the box, but now i'm thinking of moving it to floor or top. The problem with the top is that you'd see it through the windows a bit. I could sure use any advice. IF you see anything you think is bad, let me know!!!! I'm willing to take allll constructive criticisms. Here is another thread I started regarding it! https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...toybox-incubator-and-flexwatt-post-13-help/10

Oh and I did try to hatch in it once, and had all my eggs develop but all but 2 died about day 10. But that was from the mail, and I had the other half of the eggs set in my LG and I had about the same hatch rate, so I think it works, just barely though. I want it to be awesome....because it does look pretty **** good.
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With the flex watt, I would keep the the two sheets on either side of each other, and probably around the same area as the one you have in it right now.
 
I just recently built a home made incubater using old closet doors for the bottom top and sides and back and four old windows for the front. Looks. Like a nick nack case. Lol My ma was impressed we put three lite bulbs down each side and two of the metal waffles from our old styrafoam incubaters in the middle of the back wall and so far one bathroom exhaust. Fan. I still have to hook lights up to thermostat. . But it looks nice we hung all the shelving so air circulates great and plastic tubs on the bottom for moisture so far so good it can hold 900 eggs we add eggs daily. I know I may need some ideas to get better hatch rates but I'm very excited most of this stuff was just laying around here and I built something great I hope. Will post more let u know how it goes. But here's a great tip them crappy hollow closet doors hold heat in great for an incubater and menards sometimes prices the mismatched. Ones for a few bucks. So far the 200 eggs great are doing great.
 

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