Anyone Here Had Luck With Building Their Own Simple Incubator????

[SandyC]

I would like to hatch some chicks, but don't have $$$$ to spend on an incubator at the moment. How hard is a do it yourself type and how successful are they?

Thanks!

 

[ozark hen]

Hi Sandy, here is a link to Miss Prissy's thread on when she built her own. Then if you want more info go up to the SEARCH tab and type in homemade incubators and more resources will come up. good luck to you.

 

[chickenfeed]

Here is a link to a homemade incubator by MissPrissy. I followed it for mine. It's very inexpensive and easy to make.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=8510

 

[SandyC]

THank you all!

 

[quillizmightier]

!My hubby built a wooden bator, 2ft wide and tall by 1 and a half deep. The front wall is plexiglass, and he drilled a hole in the back to run a cord into a lighbulb socket mounted on the back wall. The top is hinged, there are three drill holes in the sides for air flow. The bulb is a CLEAR 100w bulb. White didn't get it hot enough. It's on a dimmer so we can adjust. The only prob was the dimmer is IN the bator, lol so we had to open it frequently to get the temp right when the AC or heat kicked on. I'm in East TX where we use both daily this time of year, lol. He is going to move the dimmer to the outside for the next hatch but for my first ever we got four out of five viable chicks, one DIS due to humidity issues (probably from opening so much to adjust). One I had to zip and moisten, one I had to remove entirely because they were so dry in the membrane. Also we had two duck eggs in, that we got from a lady who has not had any of them hatch and we weren't very hopeful because the chicks hatched in there with these eggs a week before the ducks were due. I have read that bacteria from the hatch could kill the remaining eggs.

Amazingly, I went to turn the duck eggs about 10 minutes ago (they are due on Wednesday) and there was a baby duck bill poking out of the shell! It has zipped about 1/3 of the way around the egg! He is peeping now and I am frantic to bring the humidity up QUICK! Wasn't expecting this guy for a few days at least!

Good luck

 

[happyhens]

Interesting thread. I am wanting to experiment with turning a 10 gallon aquarium into a bator. I'll post again later with details of what I did and my hatch rate, if I get to try this. I do have an order of chicks coming from Ideal, so I'll probably wait until the brooder is available again before I set any eggs.