Cabinet Incubators

dheltzel said:

You can hatch in the bottom of a cabinet incubator. It complicates lockdown and adding new eggs if you set on a schedule, and the humidity ups and downs needed are a bit of a pain, but I have 2 little Ameracaunas in the bottom of my Sportsman right now that says it works fine.

Luckily, last night when I wanted to set the eggs for the week, the eggs in lockdown on the bottom had not pipped, so I opened the door and put them in. It might have been bad for the hatching chicks if they had not been a day late hatching and got a blast of cool, dry air.

I'd go with the cabinet and keep an eye out for a used "styrobator" for hatching. You might even want 2 if you intend to fill the trays with eggs, because 1 tray can hold more eggs than a hovabator can fit.

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ks3030 said:

When you hatch out eggs on the bottom, do you let them lay on their size or put them in egg cartons? I had the styrofoam bators and have moved up to a cabinet bator. I have an Isbar due to hatch today sometime.

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RedneckRedhead said:

I am looking to get a Dickeys cabinet incubator. I want to avoid hatching in a Styrofoam incubator, because I am doing that right now and feel it is not good enough. I do not like that the cabinet can be a bit tricky if hatching and incubating. Thank you for the input, it had helped a lot .

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GAQuail said:

I incubate with a Dickey and use a styrofoam GQF 1586 Hovabator for hatching. It's an excellent combination!

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dheltzel said:

I incubate in a GQF Sportsman, and was hatching in 2 Hovabators, but I thought I could do better, so I've been building a large coolerbator for hatching. Last week was the second time using it, I split the eggs between it and a Hovabator and found the results very similar, so this week I loaded all the eggs (93!) into the new hatcher and it's working great so far. I've found some ways I can improve it of course, but the main advantage is the absolute ease of cleaning a cooler over the styrofoam.

If you do use a styro-bator for hatching, line it with a cloth (did this to raise the humidity, found it also caught most of the debris) and use plastic baskets with shelf liner (both from Dollar Tree) for holding the eggs. Nearly all the debris is caught in the baskets, which are easily washed (dishwasher safe, if you want to go that way). The shelf liner is reusable, but cheap to replace when it finally gets too dirty.

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dheltzel said:

I incubate in a GQF Sportsman, and was hatching in 2 Hovabators, but I thought I could do better, so I've been building a large coolerbator for hatching. Last week was the second time using it, I split the eggs between it and a Hovabator and found the results very similar, so this week I loaded all the eggs (93!) into the new hatcher and it's working great so far. I've found some ways I can improve it of course, but the main advantage is the absolute ease of cleaning a cooler over the styrofoam.

If you do use a styro-bator for hatching, line it with a cloth (did this to raise the humidity, found it also caught most of the debris) and use plastic baskets with shelf liner (both from Dollar Tree) for holding the eggs. Nearly all the debris is caught in the baskets, which are easily washed (dishwasher safe, if you want to go that way). The shelf liner is reusable, but cheap to replace when it finally gets too dirty.

Click to expand...