Hova Bator - Automatic Egg and Quail Turner - 1610

I bought it, it works, I am satisfied.

I thought I would upgrade my Hovabator by adding an automatic Hovabator egg turner. I bought the quail rails to go with it. I couldn't do 6 rails at once because the eggs in one tray would hit the other. Okay - I can sill do 100 at a time. Okay - I have to leave one out at the motor - but 99 is good. But several of my eggs fall out of the cups each day for a few days, and get crushed as it turns. Down to 85 before we get to lockdown - but I still got a respectable 72 hatches. Next time around, I carefully sorted the eggs to make them fit better - and had a tiny one that fit by the motor. Same thing with eggs falling out, only this time all of the trays except one dumped. It ends up that the moving arm broke. I ordered a new one - and glued a strip of wood to this one to finish the hatch. Then I found out that it also broke an arm to one of the trays. Only on day 2 of 17 - and I'm concerned that because of the jossleing and the time with the incubator open that it will be a very low hatch rate.

I like this little turner. I bought it along with a still air Hovabator 1601N and have always had great success with both chicken and guinea eggs. Every time we used it we ended up hatching over 90%. I use this turner every time we set chicken eggs, and it probably gets used 4 or 5 times a year. My only drawback is that I am currently setting some duck eggs, but because this turner holds the eggs up on their end (which is not advised for duck eggs) I won't be using it this time.

This is the worst incubator I ever had! I had perfectly fine eggs and 1 out of 18 hatched, in my experience these incubators give a 20-40% hatch rate. I have had 3 different types of incubators and this is the worst I am sorry to say, spend a bit more money for a better incubator is all I can say

I have had good luck with it an I'm overall pleased with this product. I got it as a Christmas gift in 2001 and it is still running like new. There are a few small hitch pins that hold in the trays which are easy to lose. It is plastic but as long as it is handled gently it doesn't break. Assembly can be a pain as well as switching trays but that's not a constant job. I will also add that all of my sets have resulted in either an 80-90% hatch rate or 0% hatch rate in the cases where they were bad eggs. I wouldn't run my hovabator without it.