I bought the
Brinsea Octagon 20 advance EX this spring. I have hatched turkeys, ducks, two batches of button quail, and 2 batches of Coturnix quail so far. I have about a mixed group of quail eggs, mostly buttons, in it right now, and they should hatch about Wed/Thursday this week.
My hatches have been between 25% and 50% for the most part, but I can't really blame it on the unit. All except the ducks were shipped eggs. The turkeys, 7 of 9 hatched, although one was profoundly crippled and died at 4 days old, and one was just clear from day one, and one died in-shell. With the duck eggs, I knew going in it would be a real gamble, because they were from my own ducks, and were gathered in March and early April when it was very cold, often well below freezing out, and then held for about a MONTH. I put about 2 dozen in there, and got 5 to hatch successfully. With the various quail eggs, I had between 25% and 50% success, but most of them came to me in June and July, when it was really hot, AND they came out of Florida and Texas, so I think a lot of it was the heat.
BUT, BUT, BUT, the biggest thing I think I have learned, finally, is NOT TO INTERFERE. My last hatch of quail was my best, partly perhaps because they came from Oregon in early August, and arrived during a cooler period, too. That might have been part of it. But, a lot of it was, I barely candled, didn't open the unit hardly at all, didn't mess with them, just put them on autopilot and let them go. With the other hatches, I made ALL of the newbie mistakes -- candled incessantly, opened it up all the time, including during the hatch, handled the eggs a lot. I have since learned to LEAVE THEM ALONE.
And, the
Brinsea is great for that, because it really is a "set it and forget it" type unit. The temperature and humidity remain extremely constant. About all I have to do during an 18 day quail incubation is to refill the water tank one time, towards the very end of the hatch, and even that is more out of my paranoia than real necessity, since it's still about 1/3 full at that point.
I have found the unit very easy to use, easy to clean, and well worth the money (not inconsequential as you know by any means).
I used to have a hovabator with a fan, and it was awful in terms of temperature spikes and humidity fluctuations, especially during the springtime when the ambient household temperatures changed frequently with our Michigan weather and my penchant for fresh air and open windows. It is a night and day difference between these two units, and I'm really glad that I bought it.
What I am really waiting to see is how well I do on hatching my own eggs that are freshly gathered and stored properly, not the way I stored the initial batch of duck eggs last year. I'm incubating the first eggs my buttons and coturnix from my July hatches laid, and I'm anxious to see how well these hatch, but I am trying not to be too disappointed if they don't hatch well, because these are literally the first eggs laid by very young birds, and I know that fertility is often poor at first.
