Janoel Incubation Experience

I am embarking on my first Janoel incubation.

I purchased this from China for $125. It holds 48 eggs with and auto turner.

It has 2 water channels for controlling humidity. It took me 2 weeks of experimenting to figure out how to control humidity.

It has a control panel that shows the minutes to egg turning (all the way to the left) under which the days in the incubator is displayed. It shows the humidity and temp in Celsius.

As you can see it has a clear view bottom and 4 observation windows on top. I was careful to choose the model with a serial number and the real Janoel name on it. Others do not have the observation windows. I have cut the box it came in and covered it with colored paper (I have to look at this thing 356 days a year!) and put it on the bottom for increased insulation.

I used 2 additional thermometers to figure out the temp. My cheese thermometer and this little one that also reads the humidity. I will be removing the cheese one and just leaving the little one in now that I have learned that when it reads 100 its at 99.5 internally.(cheese thermometer read 99. Used average) My Janoel will be set at 37.8 celsius.

Eggs are in and temp is holding. Humidity around 50%

26 eggs and 20 days to go.

One thing about this turner that should be noted:
It rocks to the opposite side and back, to just short of where it was every two hours. This slowly turns the eggs over a period of 24 hours. I believe the tilting action will be sufficient to keep embryos from sticking-- that coupled with the fact that it never returns to rest in the same position.

Alright. I've had to vacillate my incubator between 37.6 and 37.7. Maybe I'm fudging it a bit much here, but daytime temps have been up and It seems to be having an effect.

Humidity hovering at 46% with filling once a day.

I had to change the humidity alarm to 54 to avoid the darn thing going off all the time. Internal hygrometer reads 5% higher than the Janoel.

To change humidity high setting:
1. Press set button and hold until temp reads letters
2. Use + button to move to AS selection
3. Press set
4. Change to desired high using + or - buttons
5. Press set

Day 5
Temp seems to be stabilized at 37.7. Humidity is at 46% with one channel filled with 1/2 c water daily.


For the record:
I rinsed dirty eggs with 90 degree water and wiped with soft cloth before placing in the incubator.

Hi Heron!
Great info, I am really enjoying keeping track of your incubation.

I am running 6 of these units. I am not sure what your humidity is like being winter in the US, here in Aust and summertime the air is very dry. I was running my incubators at an average of 45%-50% and then up to 70% for hatching. Was getting quite low hatchings (under 50%) and what chicks we met were all born very wet, it was taking them 24 hours to start to fluff up.

I too got sick of the alarms going off all night (with 6 of them I was not getting much sleep!) So I dropped the alarms one evening down to 25% and then...hmm...forgot to put them back up the next morning. It was over a week before I remembered - and in that time we had hatched one lot of chicks - 85% hatch rate and chicks dry and fluffy within half an hour of hatching.

I have now put through 3 lots of eggs at the lower humidity and we are still going at 85% hatch rate (and my eggs have been coming from the same place all the time).

Just thought I would mention it - depending on your out of incubator conditions you might want to let your humidity drop a few %.

Keep the story going! Can't wait to see what results you get.

Best wishes, Cate

Hey I use a Janoel it works great. Only ever hatched ducklings in it but I've just set 14 chicken eggs I bought today so hoping it all goes well. I've never filled it to compasity but had a 100% hatch rate with my duck eggs bred from my Pekins so hoping for a good hatch with the chickens.

Wow! That is an amazing hatch rate.

I'm close to candeling my eggs. Hope that my roo has been diligent with the girls I closed him in with.

I'll be interested to see your chicken egg hatch rate. Keep me posted.

Any words of wisdom from using your Janoel?

Day 7
Find myself turning incubator to 37.6 during the day and 37.7 at night. Temp is hovering at 99.5-100 with humidity between 40=50%

Candeled today:
4 clears
2 quitters
21 left!

One possible twin? Will take photos tonight. Not happy as it will probably die and break my heart!!!!!

Yes will let you know, still some time before I can candle and see so just letting the incubator do its thing so far. I set Gold Laced Wyandotte and Dark barred Plymouth rock eggs. The lady I brought them off said she gets around 98% fertilisation so fingers crossed. Yeh my drake definitely hit the mark with fertility lol.

Not really any words of wisdom, I kept the humidity high for my duckies so chickens will be a new experience as the humidity should be kept lower or there's a risk of the chickies drowning. I did have to help my last duckling which was a late hatcher and ended getting shrink wrapped as my humidity wouldn't do what I wanted, but it was pretty dry outside the incubator which was probably my problem. Still learning as well but I'm happy with it so far.