Brinsea Mini Advance Incubator

Yes, that's what the direction tell you to do. However it doesn't always work for me. In the summer when it's very humid, one half cup shoots my humidity up too high. Also, unless you get the seperate hydrogememter, you can't tell what your himidity is at. There is no guage built in.

Hello - I am borrowing this incubator from a friend who purchased it in 3/15 and successfully hatched chicks last spring. After reading your comments on calibration, I placed the thermometer/hygrometer from our snake's enclosure into the incubator. After a few hours, it read about 92 degrees and 60%humidity (I filled both halves of the water container). To double check it, I then placed my old mercury oral thermometer inside - and it reads 98.4

Do you think that I should calibrate it? Or should I just place my eggs tomorrow and see what happens?
I also really wish it had a hygrometer built in!!!

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer!

There is a method for calibrating a hygrometer using a bag of salt (really! - you can search for it on here), which would possibly save you some grief - the humidity is just as important as the temperature throughout the hatch, and depending on your hatching method it needs to increase significantly after lockdown. With that much difference between the bator's temperature reading and the mercury thermometer, I would suggest using a food thermometer to see which one is more accurate - you can easily calibrate the food thermometer with boiling water - and then just adjust the bator's readout, or adjust for the difference whenever you read it. On the other hand it seems unlikely that the mercury thermometer would be wrong - I've never heard of them being out before - so you could probably just stick that in and go with that. Hatching with an incubator might be a fun project for some, but I've found it so stressful. Since then I just leave it up to a brooody - even new mammas will do a better job then I ever could!

Thanks for the input. I did discover that there is about a 1.5 degree difference between the bottom of the bator and resting the thermometer on the raised middle (the water compartment). So I just set my eggs in. I have the bator set for 100.7 which reads 99.2 at the raised middle. As for humidity, I filled one of the 2 cups and will hope for the best. I am borrowing a friend's hygrometer from her college lab where she teaches - hopefully it will accurate. Although I am getting caught up in the very specifics and plan to step back and see what happens now!
Thanks again!

Oh no! So, nothing hatched?

Someday I hope to get a small incubator so your review was very helpful. This is the size for me as I'd only want to hatch a few at a time. Good to know your experience with this one has been positive.

I am using this incubator for the first time and so far I'm very pleased with it! The temperature holds steady, the humidity is right where it should be, and so far all the eggs are developing!

I bought it on Amazon for $187. I have Prime shipping so it was at my door in 2 days!

completely unrelated to the review..but LOVE your profile pic..Jensen has been drool worthy for years and I dontnthink Supernatural would be what it is without him <3

I had good results in my classroom. Mine had the automatic humidity control. One grade up.
The help line was very helpful!

I have read that this brand of incubator has a fan in it and when the chicks hatched they get caught in it and get very hurt if not killed. I may be wrong about this model. But it was this brand. I believe there is a screen you can get to cover the fan to protect the chicks as they hatch. I have seen some awful pictures of the chicks being injured. Just an FYI maybe.

Not a good incubator for hatching dark brown eggs which need lower than usual humidity. I got almost a zero percent hatch rate on dark eggs with this incubator, switched to another one which displays the humidity rate and got 100% hatch rate.

I have been using the Brinsea maxi II advance and one still I have to add water to the external or internal reservoir.
One also has to monitor said water and also add their own humidity gauge to self-monitor the humidity as well. The higher up model has a humidity gauge I think.
I will most likely invest in the Brinsea humidity pump, because I think that add-on does all the humidity work for us.
I have only hatched one buff Orpington (light brown)egg so far. I have a whole assortment in there right now. Ranging from large rare endangered breed eggs tiny bantams eggs.

Used this product for my Guinea Fowl eggs, very user friendly and 2 hatched (4 of them were not fertile and 1 did not develop correctly). Highly recommend.