Brinsea Mini 2 Advance questions!

[Fallenone05]

Hey y'all!

I got my first incubator and it's a Brinsea Mini 2 Advance. I'm on my last week of incubation, my six eggs are growing and thriving!!

I've got a hygrometer/thermometer inside the incubator and my humidity has been around 35-40%. It's been reading about 2F cooler than what the incubator is set for, but I don't think that's a big enough difference for it to really be harmful/super inaccurate.

My biggest question is, is that how do you get the humidity up? Hatch days should be +60% humidity right? Do you just add water to the dish in the middle? Should I do a piece of wet sponge? Any advice would be great and be very appreciated!! I've always let nature do its thing vs me hatching them.

 

[Skippersnh]

ive had to add a wet sponge before to get humidity where ineeded it but i would try adding water first

 

[Fallenone05]

ive had to add a wet sponge before to get humidity where ineeded it but i would try adding water first

Awesome! Thank you.

 

[luvmigirls]

I know there are two wells inside the yellow incubator circle. One pulls from the exterior reservoir, the other is filled up only if you pour some in. Your eggs are hatched by now, would be nice to hear an update.

How did your 2 degree temperature difference between the units versus your personal gage influence the hatch?
What type of thermometer/hygrometer do you use?
What type of eggs were you hatching, Did all 6 survive?

 

[Fallenone05]

I know there are two wells inside the yellow incubator circle. One pulls from the exterior reservoir, the other is filled up only if you pour some in. Your eggs are hatched by now, would be nice to hear an update.

How did your 2 degree temperature difference between the units versus your personal gage influence the hatch?
What type of thermometer/hygrometer do you use?
What type of eggs were you hatching, Did all 6 survive?

Hello! So, the temperature was fine. My humidity seemed to be the only problem with the hatch. I couldn't get the humidity levels to raise above 60%, so I ended up adding a wet paper towel to create more surface area. It boosted the humidity up to 80% in just a little while! Surface area seems to be way more important than the depth of the reservoir or how much is in it.

All six survived, despite a few hiccups. The Brinsea Mini 2 has a cool down setting where it simulates a hen leaving the nest. Unfortunately that does not have an auto shut off like the auto egg turner, so on hatch day my temps dropped down to like 70. I nearly died and turned that off real quick. However, due to my low humidity levels, I had a couple chicks become shrink wrapped in their eggs and had to assist with hatching. They all made it through, though, but one died due to the other chicks smothering it.

I've definitely learned a lot about the incubator and incubation in general with this little test batch!

 

[Fallenone05]

My favorite baby so far

 

[vwight]

Hi! I found this thread looking for tips on incubating with the Brinsea Mini II Advance. Can you tell me what type of hygrometer you used inside the incubator? And did you also put a thermometer inside too to get a temp closer to the eggs? I appreciate all your tips above about managing the humidity. This will be my first time using the Mini II.

 

[Fallenone05]

Hi! I found this thread looking for tips on incubating with the Brinsea Mini II Advance. Can you tell me what type of hygrometer you used inside the incubator? And did you also put a thermometer inside too to get a temp closer to the eggs? I appreciate all your tips above about managing the humidity. This will be my first time using the Mini II.

Hello! I used some teeny little hygrometer inside my incubator. It also had a thermometer built-in. I'm not sure I trust it 100% but it seems to get the job done. I ordered it from Amazon, and it was this one, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QC7JRDP/ . The temps read about a degree off and the hygrometer arrived already turned on. If I weren't under quarantine with this mess I'd get an, uh.. I guess analog?? hygrometer and calibrate it.

I'm running a second hatch currently!

 

[Fallenone05]

I'm not super worried about the temperature difference considering my eggs developed right on schedule and developed great. My only complaint is the humidity inside the incubator itself. It's currently at about 44% but it seems that, for my area, the recommended 30-35% humidity was too low. I had a few chicks get shrink wrapped.

If you're interested in a kind of long-ish read about my full experience, https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/lessons-learned-brinsea-mini-advance-2.75415/ I have this article here! If you have more questions though feel free to ask! I'm no expert but I'll answer what I can.

 

[vwight]

Hello! I used some teeny little hygrometer inside my incubator. It also had a thermometer built-in. I'm not sure I trust it 100% but it seems to get the job done. I ordered it from Amazon, and it was this one, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QC7JRDP/ . The temps read about a degree off and the hygrometer arrived already turned on. If I weren't under quarantine with this mess I'd get an, uh.. I guess analog?? hygrometer and calibrate it.

I'm running a second hatch currently!

Thank you so much for getting back to me. that is the size of the one I have used in the past with my still air incubator. I put it in my Brinsea Mini (no eggs set yet) just to see what kind of reading I'm getting and it was like 5 degrees cooler on the floor of the incubator. So the Brinsea was holding at 99.5 degrees F but my small hygrometer/thermometer read 94.6 degrees. That seems like a huge difference. Do you futz with your Brinsea temps or just leave it at 99.5 and walk away?