25 watt bulbs burn out

[trinar]

~~Put 48 nice brown eggs in incubator last Wed 1-22-14, this morning the light was out, temp down to 80, hope they make it. It is hard for me to get a 25 watt bulb to last through 2 hatches, only 6 weeks. Are any of you other folks having problems with bulbs having short lives?
TR in AR

 

[dheltzel]

Frequent on-off cycles are really hard on incandescent bulbs. The easy solution is to buy a ceramic heat emitter from a pet store. They screw into the same fixture as your bulb, but produce no light, just infared heat. You should probably make sure you have a baffle between it and the eggs to prevent direct overheating.

Or, replace your bulb with a compact florescent that stays on and add a separate heating element that can take the frequent cycles.

 

[Manningjw]

~~Put 48 nice brown eggs in incubator last Wed 1-22-14, this morning the light was out, temp down to 80, hope they make it. It is hard for me to get a 25 watt bulb to last through 2 hatches, only 6 weeks. Are any of you other folks having problems with bulbs having short lives?
TR in AR

Only down to 80 degrees? I had my power go out on my last hatch when I was sleeping, I am not sure how long the power was out but the temp in the incubator was down to 62ish if I remember right. I had to haul my incubator over to my parents house and leave it there a couple of days. I still had 12 out of 13 eggs hatch, 11 ultimately survived and were thriving.

 

[trinar]

dheltzel
I appreciate the good advice, I had never heard of heating elements that can screw into the light socket, I will try that.
Someone put me onto this, very interesting.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/light-bulb-conspiracy/

Thanks
TR

 

[trinar]

manningjw
12 out of 13 hatching is a great percentage under the best conditions. That is encorraging, I just put in a new bulb and will continue and hope for the best.
Thanks
TR

 

[Fred's Hens]

Curious whether the ceramic heat emitters would heat quickly enough. My home made incubators use light bulbs and the thermostat cycles very quickly, creating only a one degree swing between "top" and "bottom" of the off/on cycle.

Does anyone know if the ceramic type create a wild swing of 3 or 4 degrees because of what I suspect might be a slow heat up and slow cool down time? Curious.

 

[Manningjw]

manningjw
12 out of 13 hatching is a great percentage under the best conditions. That is encorraging, I just put in a new bulb and will continue and hope for the best.
Thanks
TR

So how was the hatch?

 

[trinar]

Had 28 out of the 48 hatch, thanks for your input, glad I continued the prosses. Cracked the unhatched eggs to check, and most were unfertal, so I guess they didn't get harmed much by the short near 80 degree drop. Got another batch going, and the light burned out last night, but I cought it right away. Also giving some goose eggs a try for the first time.
TR in AR