Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance EX with automatic Humidity Pump and Trader Joe eggs

[Yorkshire Coop]

Congrats on your first chick Hopefully this one should encourage the others. Good luck

My incubator has found itself another 21 eggs

 

[OnlyOrps]

Yay! Hope more hatch! Congratulations!

 

[scflock]

These will be going into lockdown on Tuesday. My second hatch with the 20 Advance. I got 17 of 19 on the first try. I absolutely love this incubator. I may add the pump this spring, but for right now I can add water every few days to save $140

 

[BathrobeGardner]

Congrats on your first chick

Hopefully this one should encourage the others. Good luck

My incubator has found itself another 21 eggs

Thank you. The poor thing is so lonely in there.

By the way, do you find that the hatches in the Brinsea are slower than other incubators? With my LIttle Giant, I would have had 6 chicks running around by now.

Good luck with your new load

 

[BathrobeGardner]

These will be going into lockdown on Tuesday. My second hatch with the 20 Advance. I got 17 of 19 on the first try. I absolutely love this incubator. I may add the pump this spring, but for right now I can add water every few days to save $140

17 out of 19 is fantastic. I hope I get great results. This incubator is not cheap and my husband will not let me hear the end of it if it does not do better than the Little Giant. By the way, my friend just borrowed the Little Giant from and she just hatched 11 out 12 eggs from my brood so I'm desperate to show that there is a benefit to the Brinsea aaarrrhhhh the pressure LOL.

The pump is fantastic though and definitely worth it when you can afford it.

 

[BathrobeGardner]

UPDATE: So far, 8 chicks have hatched (I helped one a little but it's alive and kicking). 6 more pipped and ready to hatch. The rest are still sleeping (I hope). I will post pictures tomorrow.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Thank you.  The poor thing is so lonely in there.

By the way, do you find that the hatches in the Brinsea are slower than other incubators?  With my LIttle Giant, I would have had 6 chicks running around by now.

Good luck with your new load

Congrats on more hatchers and pips. Mine usually 24 hours although the last was just over. Every hatch is different. Can depend on what breed of eggs, egg quality and how old the eggs are when set.

 

[scflock]

Thank you. The poor thing is so lonely in there.

By the way, do you find that the hatches in the Brinsea are slower than other incubators? With my LIttle Giant, I would have had 6 chicks running around by now.

Good luck with your new load

I did have a slow hatch on my first go around. I've dropped my humidity a little this time. The pips looked a little close to the end. Are you running the cool-down? I'm getting my humidity right, then will try the cool-down. I will be hatching with this for years, so I'm keeping notes on everything

 

[BathrobeGardner]

UPDATE: 19 (out of 24) chicks have hatched so far (9 out of 11 Trader Joe eggs, all 8 of the eggs from my flock and 2 out of the 5 my friend gave to me). I did a quick water test and the remaining 2 TJ eggs are still alive and 1 from my friend's eggs is also still kicking, I think the other two will not make it. They are small dark eggs and I was never able to candle them.

But YAY I am not complaining at all. Well done Brinsea. I'm so pleased with the TJ eggs and if the hens are anything like Miracle (my only surviving TJ egg from my Little Giant hatch), I will be swimming in eggs LOL. Here are some pictures. They are all hiding under the Brinsea Ecoglow so it was hard getting pictures. I love the Ecoglow but I do wish the plastic was clear so you can see the chicks. I really love looking at them as they are so fascinating to me. Now I'm kind of missing my old heat lamp

 

[BathrobeGardner]

I did have a slow hatch on my first go around. I've dropped my humidity a little this time. The pips looked a little close to the end. Are you running the cool-down? I'm getting my humidity right, then will try the cool-down. I will be hatching with this for years, so I'm keeping notes on everything

I did run the cooling down feature but only after I candled at the 7 day mark. I don't plan to use the feature for my next incubation just to see what the difference will be. When my Buff is sitting on her eggs, she never gets up for a hour a day - 10 mins at most - and she's back to her eggs. The cooling down feature's minimum time is 1 hour. I am presuming that is why the hatch seems slow (although today is really only day 22 - I think I should take some "chill down" pills LOL).

Question: How do you clean the incubator? It is covered in down feathers and the plastic is almost completely covered.