Bread Box Incubator

[MissPrissy]

This is what I have tried to tell everyone who questions building one of these. You have to experiment and find what combination works for you and your environment.

 

[speckledhen]

I appreciate your suggestions, wraith, and I watched your slideshow, but I have a question. Are you going to allow them to hatch up high like that? The reason I'm asking is that they will jump right over the edge of that tray when they start running around. I didn't know if you planned to take the eggs and place them below, but I see your fan down there, so I didn't think so. The chicks I hatch are vigorous little things and I can see them doing a kamikaze dive to the fan below.
My favorite homemade bator is my Fridge-a-Bator which runs beautifully with a wafer thermo. Holds temp and humidity like a charm, probably because the little dorm fridge its made from is so super insulated. I just needed another hatcher since this next hatch I'm starting at the end of the week will require me to incubate and hatch in both my Hovabator AND my Fridge-a-Bator, which I usually use as my hatcher.

 

[wraith2626]

I have a second false floor that will go in above the light and fans, that will be inserted quickly as hatch day arrives. The turning mechanism comes out then. It is installed with the mindset of being able to convert for hatch day.

 

[shmooborp]

what kind of llightbulb did you use,.... any thing special?

 

[wraith2626]

I tried several bulbs - wound up with a 40 watt clear oven bulb working best...but I had to have a fan in between the bulb and the eggs so as to not have direct heat build too fast on the eggs closest to the bulb. All other bulb wattages made temps rise too fast or else made temps way too wild and variable.

Like it was said earlier, there is a bit of an art with tinkering with your setup to get it right. I think with the cooler turned incubator idea the efficiency of the cooler to hold temp in is a key factor to making the high variability of the hot water heater thermostat work. I recommend you work and play with the amount of extra exterier insulating you can add (blankets or towels on top, bubble wrap around the sides) so that you can keep as much of the heat that is built up inside, so the thermostat causes the cycling of the bulb to be as infrequent as possible. That was my goal when I built my design. The hand turn egg turner was simply so that I opened the cooler as few times as possible keeping internal temps stable once the desired temp was reached.

I look at the average temperature I am able to hold as more important in the design and worry less about the up and down swings the light going on and off bring. As long as during the cycle I maintain in my water wiggler setup the temp I need for the egg to develop as well as the humidity range I am looking for then I am good to go.

Right now 19 of 19 developing chicks seem to agree that the on and off effect of the hot water thermostat cycling will not cause issues if the overall average temp stays where it needs to be.

Nature seems to be pretty forgiving in the development of my eggs so far however. I don't want you to have the perception that my temperatures stay rock steady. In fact, I would say that they seem to constantly fluctuate. However, overall the average temp is staying right at or near the 100.5 range I was looking for air temp., and my water wiggler temps stay at 98.9 to 100.2 almost constantly.

 

[shmooborp]

missprissy, would you say that the cost to build was under 30$

 

[MissPrissy]

If you have things on hand the cost can be under $10 unless you have a thermostat laying around someplace.

 

[shmooborp]

and what bulb did you use missprissy

 

[MissPrissy]

This one has a 25 watt small clear bulb.

 

[shmooborp]

wow! and that keeps it hot enough? mind me asking your turning method?