Incuview Incubator

[MargaretYakoda]

Agree! I cant help but wonder if there is some miscommunication here and its the turner that injured the chicks instead of the fan.

Which brings us back to user error since the turner should have been off days before hatch.
On my first hatch I set the timer wrong and when lockdown time came I couldn't figure out how to turn the turner off, so I just took the turner tray out. It was super easy to do that.

Even so, the chances of a chick catching their toe in the turner tray and getting injured seems mighty slim to me. And the chance of a chick tripping on a moving turner tray and then having it's toe flipped far enough up it catches in the fan through the grill I think is extreeemlyyyyy slim. Then that happens twice? In one hatch?

Maybe that's what actually happened. But, to be honest? I don't believe it. Although I have been known to be wrong before.
It happened once. It was a Tuesday....

 

[IncubatorWarehouse.com]

I'm very sorry to hear about the accident. It is definitely an extremely rare accident, in fact this is the first time we have heard about the IncuView fan injuring any chick. We would appreciate letting us know if anyone else has experienced a similar case.

 

[ErniesFlock]

we received ours yesterday not even 7 days and its here! Way up in Canada too we might add! Its a beautiful unit and we fired it up seems to be within a degree next to our grow thermoeter/hydrometer. we will take precautions with the fan we appreciate the heads up. seems flukey but will take note of it.

I'm very sorry to hear about the accident. It is definitely an extremely rare accident, in fact this is the first time we have heard about the IncuView fan injuring any chick. We would appreciate letting us know if anyone else has experienced a similar case.

 

[lambkamp]

Following

 

[Fyremare]

Which brings us back to user error since the turner should have been off days before hatch.
On my first hatch I set the timer wrong and when lockdown time came I couldn't figure out how to turn the turner off, so I just took the turner tray out. It was super easy to do that.

Even so, the chances of a chick catching their toe in the turner tray and getting injured seems mighty slim to me. And the chance of a chick tripping on a moving turner tray and then having it's toe flipped far enough up it catches in the fan through the grill I think is extreeemlyyyyy slim. Then that happens twice? In one hatch?

Maybe that's what actually happened. But, to be honest? I don't believe it. Although I have been known to be wrong before.
It happened once. It was a Tuesday....

Flukes happen, yes the tray was out, I will ask if the turner was off. I didn't turn it off during my hatch, but I took out the tray. I read through the directions but couldn't find how to turn it off.

I have no reason to not believe her, nor any reason to give false information. I won't take your posts negatively Margaret, I hope it's a rare occurence and was not trying to start any drama. Also hope it never happens again.

Glad I wasn't around you on that Tuesday!

 

[Ozarkguy]

The incuview is a great little incubator with some great features including the turning feature which can be adjusted depending on how often you want to turn your eggs. The only thing I would like to see is a smaller turning tray for smaller eggs. I would suggest to anyone that buy's this incubator to get familiar with the controls before using it because it has a wide range of adjustment's for its price range and they really aren't that complicated.

 

[sm2teach]

I plan on ordering this incubator in the next few weeks. The clear top and automatic controls appeal to me because I plan to use it in my classroom. I do have the concern of using it with shipped eggs. I have never hatched before but I have read a lot that shipped eggs should be put in the incubator with the pointy end down to help air cells reattach. I see that this incubator has the eggs sit on their sides. What impact would this have on shipped eggs?

 

[Sydney Acres]

I plan on ordering this incubator in the next few weeks. The clear top and automatic controls appeal to me because I plan to use it in my classroom. I do have the concern of using it with shipped eggs. I have never hatched before but I have read a lot that shipped eggs should be put in the incubator with the pointy end down to help air cells reattach. I see that this incubator has the eggs sit on their sides. What impact would this have on shipped eggs?

Not all shipped eggs will have detached air cells, so it may not be an issue.

Here is some great hatching information, including information on how to handle shipped eggs: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101
It is a very long article with lots of links, so if you don't find what you want, keep scrolling down. It has a huge amount of great information, but it has been added onto many times so is not organized perfectly. You may need to look for specific things in random places.

But as a very minimum quickie summary, when you get your eggs they will have been shaken and vibrated a lot in shipping. First, remove any eggs that have been cracked or are leaking or are otherwise visibly damaged or horribly dirty (some debris is ok). Do not wash them!! Then just set them in an egg carton, preferably cardboard instead of plastic or styrofoam IMO, pointy end down, in an area that is 50-60 degrees (the temp is important -- too cold and the embryo dies, too warm and it starts to develop before you want it to) for 24 hours. Let them rest after shipping so everything can settle into place before you start incubation. After they've rested for a day then candle them (some people do this before the rest -- it probably doesn't matter). Don't subject them to a lot of rolling around and movement, just enough to see if the air cell is attached, and also whether it has a normal shape. There are some pictures of abnormal air cells on the Hatching 101 link above. A detached air cell will move around like a bubble in a carpenter's level, and an attached air cell will stay in place.

If you've determined that your eggs need special handling based on air cell attachment or air cell shape, there are several examples of options on the link. If I need to keep an egg upright during incubation I keep it in the egg carton (or a small portion of the carton, depending on how much room I have in the incubator). I remove the top of the carton, and any extra egg slots that I don't need, but keep enough that the portion that I use is stable enough to remain upright (minimum of 4 egg slots, but it may be different for the Incuview, depending on how you will need to elevate the carton above the egg turning slide). Then I poke lots of holes into the egg cup of the cardboard. I try to poke them from the outside toward the inside, such that a little bit of cardboard pushes inward. That will help elevate the egg just slightly off the surface of the cardboard and increase air circulation to the shell surface. (You could also glue little bits of anything inside the egg cup for the same purpose, but this works well for me, so I haven't changed it.)

Before you order eggs, first make sure that your incubator achieves and holds the temp and humidity that you want (because realistically, 1-5% of new machines don't work the way they should). Ideally, since this will be a new incubator for you, run the incubator for several days or more when it first arrives to make sure it works properly. If you don't buy the humidity pump that comes with it, practice achieving different humidities, and what you need to do to change the humidity. It's different for different incubators, and sometimes isn't as easy as you would think. I lost my entire first hatch because I hadn't figured out how to do this beforehand. Learning this when there are live embryos responding to your mistakes usually has a very sad ending. Yes, your humidity will be different with a full incubator than with an empty incubator, but if you learn what it takes to increase and decrease the humidity the same principles will apply regardless of whether or not the incubator is full -- you'll just have a different starting point, and it may respond just a little quicker or slower, depending on what you're trying to do. (I will say that buying the humidity pump does make it much easier, but it also changes this from a mid-priced incubator to a higher-priced incubator.)

Lastly, do not put cool eggs into a hot incubator. The eggs need to warm up slowly, over several hours. This is much easier with a digital thermostat controlled incubator like the Incuview. I tend to go a little slow, some people go much quicker. I set the incubator temp for 5 degrees higher than the temp the eggs were stored in. Then I raise it by 5 degrees every hour until I've reached 99.5 degrees. I set a timer so I don't forget. If I'm short on time I do 10 degrees every hour, or 15 degrees. Before I had a digital incubator I just moved the eggs into progressively warmer areas in my house to allow them to warm up slowly, so the warming process doesn't have to be exact. It just shouldn't be 60 degrees to 99.5 degrees all in one step.

Since you're the teacher and have never hatched before, it would be a good idea if you are able to go to someone's house during a hatch to see it in person. Yes, you can watch videos, but it's different in real life. The videos only show the highlights, which are great, but it would be ideal if you could see the entire process. The kids will have lots of questions, and seeing your first hatch beforehand will make it easier for you to answer them. It's not 100% necessary, but would just make it easier.

Good luck with your hatch. I hope the kids love it. Be sure to have a brooder area available and ready before the chicks hatch. Sometimes they hatch as early as 18 days, or as late as 25 days, so don't count on nature to read the book. I like to lay down a paper towel, covered by that rubbery woven shelf paper, under the eggs on day 18 when I stop the egg turner. That keeps the incubator cleaner during the hatch, and gives the chicks better traction when they first learn to stand. Sometimes you can leave chicks in the incubator for a short time after they hatch, and sometimes chicks have to be removed from the incubator and put into the brooder to keep them from breaking the unhatched eggs. So having little cages available that you can put in the incubator to keep the newly hatched chick from moving all over, or having a brooder ready, can really help keep things under control. Have you already made arrangements for the chicks once they hatch? They grow SO fast, and remember that some of them will be roosters. Unless you get a sex-linked breed, you may not be able to tell which are males or females until they're 1-2 months old, so any homes they're placed into has to be aware of that also. Having lots of potential homes available before they hatch can make things easier. Sometimes there aren't homes available at the last minute, and you end up with laying hens in your spare bedroom and roosters in your spare bathroom -- and that just isn't good for anyone!!

 

[sm2teach]

@Sydney Acres

Thank you so much for the advice. I have seen that article but it is very overwhelming. I will try to tackle it again. I have a small flock of 12 twelve week old chicks now. 7 of them are turning out to be roosters. I will rehome or process all but one of the roosters. I would like to have about 20 hens. I plan on hatching some shipped eggs at home before hatching at school because I want some breeds that I can't find around here. I should have some fertile homegrown eggs to hatch at school in the spring. These of course will come home with me. I want to purchase the Brinsea brooder for the first few days at school after they hatch. I don't want the fire hazard of a heat lamp at school. Ugh this chicken math is getting out of control.

 

[Sydney Acres]

@Sydney Acres

Thank you so much for the advice. I have seen that article but it is very overwhelming. I will try to tackle it again. I have a small flock of 12 twelve week old chicks now. 7 of them are turning out to be roosters. I will rehome or process all but one of the roosters. I would like to have about 20 hens. I plan on hatching some shipped eggs at home before hatching at school because I want some breeds that I can't find around here. I should have some fertile homegrown eggs to hatch at school in the spring. These of course will come home with me. I want to purchase the Brinsea brooder for the first few days at school after they hatch. I don't want the fire hazard of a heat lamp at school. Ugh this chicken math is getting out of control.

Oh, that's totally different if you're keeping the chicks but just hatching them at school for the kids to see. That's very generous of you to do that for your students.

I have heard wonderful things about the Brinsea Ecoglow brooder. I just purchased mine from Amazon.com. Couldn't decide between the larger or smaller one, but got the larger one because it gives me more flexibility, and I found it at a great price through this Amazon listing: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0053PW7GC/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 When I added in shipping, that was almost $50 less than I could buy it directly from the company. I've unpacked it but haven't plugged it in yet. It's sturdy and I'm very impressed so far. I've had people recommend putting contact paper on the top of it, as the chicks will get on top of it and poop, so the contact paper will make it easier to clean at the end of the season. I plan on doing that, and putting the rubbery mesh shelf paper on top of the contact paper to give the chicks some traction. The rubbery mesh is available at Costco in large rolls, can be cut to any size, has hundreds of uses, can be washed with hot water and bleach and reused for years.

Everyone is overwhelmed by the Hatching 101 article at first. It's like one of those huge multichapter textbooks. The difference is that no one expects a student to read and understand a whole textbook in one sitting -- but because this is just an article on BYC, people expect to be able to read it, understand it, and be done. It doesn't work that way for this article. If you treat it like a reference book it'll be easier to handle. Read it over, think about it. Go back to a few of the more complicated chapters, let it sink in a little more. Hatch out a few clutches, see how the information applies to real life, use it to look things up as the hatch is happening, it'll start to make more sense. Once some things start to make sense, you built on those and then this avalanche of information will just start to click into place. It's just like learning any other new skill -- there's a huge, steep learning curve with lots of bumps along the way. You're a teacher - you understand the process. Look at it that way and you'll do fine.

Now, if you can only explain to me how to get this chicken math thing under control. I need to start culling my hens as well as my cockerels. I just hatched out a couple of small clutches from my four best hens and all of a sudden I'm up to 49 birds.

"Hello, my name is April and I own an incubator. Please help me."