Are small incubators better.

[PoppyLove]

I have been mad on hatching chickens for about 18 months now since I moved to an acreage.
I started with a very small incubator for 12 eggs. You can actually only fit nine in confidence that they won't jam while rotating though. Anyway of course it wasn't long before I wanted a bigger incubator. I looked online and found a nice sized 60 egg incubator for the same price with added humidity monitor.
All the hatches I've done in the bigger one failed.(so far 3 hatches)

[/IMG][/IMG] I've had 1 or 2 hatch out of about 30 eggs each time. I candle eggs at 7 and 18 days and something seems to happen between day 7 and day 18.
I've decided to stick with my smaller Janoel incubator for now.
Just wondering if someone else has had a similar experience when they bought a bigger machine.
Cheers

 

[PoppyLove]

Sorry the??? We're deleted somehow grrrr

 

[dheltzel]

Not all incubators are equal in their ability to control the environment enough to get a good hatch. Like many things, you often get what you pay for, and some brands stake out the high end and have a great reputation (Brinsea and RCOM come to mind). Then there are the "workhorse" manufacturers like GQF (Hovabators and Sportsmans) and Miller (Little Giant). Finally there are the cheap imports you find online. Personally, I usually buy "in the middle" and avoid the super cheap or super expensive (with more than incubators). So, I tend to use and recommend the GQF brand. I have an old Sportsman that I bought used and it does a great job, but is too large fro most people. Larger is often better because the fluctuations are less overall, but as you've found, size is less important than the parts and build quality.

If someone has deep pockets, I recommend Brinsea, otherwise, I'd suggest the GQF Genesis as the best model for most uses, or at least start there and compare others to that one.