Anyone make a seperate homemade hatcher?

[Omani]

Ok, silly question. What's the difference between an incubator and a hatcher?

 

[rittert3]

Quote:
Alot of people leave eggs in the incubator to hatch but a hatcher is simmilar but just for hatching. Ussually eggs are moved to the hatch when removed from the turner, (day 18 for chickens) if you turn by hand and only set a few eggs there is not really any sense in a hatcher.

Edited to add: it is also an excuse to have another bator around, lol

 

[Peeper7]

I've found that hatch-a-holics simply must have a hatcher. It frees up the incubator so that you can set more eggs...and it doubles as an "extra" incubator ... but I didn't tell my DH that ..

 

[JCoogle]

I really like having a seperate hatcher so I can stagar my hatches. I do not like keeping eggs for more then three of four days before incubating. So far it has really proved itself out because on eggs from my flock I have a 96% hatch rate.

 

[rittert3]

I want to try a stagered hatch this summer. I havn't ever tryed it before. I will hold upto 7 days just to keep things even, (everything I've read says at 10 days there is about 80% hatchability, I won't ever bother with anything older than that) I have a freind that sets his eggs at he gathers them so he is hatching and setting constantly and all in 1 bator (he has a sportsman

) but I want to keep my sets grouped a little more

 

[titika]

I have an old fish tank i want to turn into a Hatcher but not sure what to use as a lid. Maybe a piece of glass?

 

[makmm]

If you can find an old mini fridge you can make a hatcher out of one of those. People are usually happy to get rid of them if they dont work anymore. I'm just getting addicted... I mean stared in hatching and I talked my Hubby into having a incubator and a hatcher!! Granted we can wire all the lights and fans in. But it is super easy! Theres a couple great threads on here for mini fridge incubators