BUILD YOUR OWN INCUBATOR

[backyardklukker]

If you built your own incubator, post a picture of it. Lots of people build their own and like to see others to get ideas. Post a picture of your incubator and list the most basic of the parts.

1-Universal lower thermostat for electric water heater at Home Depot $8
1-Ceramic based brooder light from Home Depot $13
1-250 Watt infrared brooder light (buy anywhere)$6
1-Universal window fan(looks like a large computer fan) $15
2 thermometers
1 extra bathroom cabinet
radiant barrier insulation
some extra scrap hardware cloth 1/2inch

 

[ozexpat]

If you built your own incubator, post a picture of it. Lots of people build their own and like to see others to get ideas. Post a picture of your incubator and list the most basic of the parts.

1-Universal lower thermostat for electric water heater at Home Depot $8
1-Ceramic based brooder light from Home Depot $13
1-250 Watt infrared brooder light (buy anywhere)$6
1-Universal window fan(looks like a large computer fan) $15
2 thermometers
1 extra bathroom cabinet
radiant barrier insulation
some extra scrap hardware cloth 1/2inch

hi

you may want to drop the light down to a 40 or 60 watt in thats size bator. a 250 may give you bigger fluctuations.

 

[backyardklukker]

I tried all 3. Only the 250 watt could heat a cabinet of this size efficiently. Plus the light gets so hot, the bulbs excessive heat after it goes out keeps the cabinet very consistent. I've had this cabinet for 6 months now. It hatches more birds than the two others I have, which are both farm innovators models.

 

[ozexpat]

my first foray into bators was to digitalize a farm innovators bator and add a fan. this now works as well as a genesis 1588





Next is the bordeaux bator - made from a wine box. its my mini hatcher















This is my display case bator now used for hatching. It has one 80 w flood light and a 40 watt incandescant.









then the mega bator. it uses 2 x 150 w hallogen lights - one would be sufficient but i like back up

it holds up to 1000 eggs when double stacked

 

[ozexpat]

I tried all 3. Only the 250 watt could heat a cabinet of this size efficiently. Plus the light gets so hot, the bulbs excessive heat after it goes out keeps the cabinet very consistent. I've had this cabinet for 6 months now. It hatches more birds than the two others I have, which are both farm innovators models.

if it works dont fix it

congrats

 

[Haveandtohold]

Wow you guys are hardcore! My little homemade job looks sad in comparison!

Here it is anyway:




My mission for this was to spend as little money as possible so it's mostly things I had around the house. I made it out of a clear Rubbermaid container that's about 1 and a half feet on each side. It was previously used to grow mushrooms so it has a 4 inch diameter circle cut in the middle of one side that was covered with an air filter patch. I cut a hole in the middle of that patch to put in a 40 watt light bulb and the cord for a gutted laptop cooling fan. I insulated the whole thing with a few layers of paper grocery bags. The fan sits on a tiny dish of water since I live in Colorado and air humidity is usually really low. I refill the water when it gets low, other than that it runs right about 100 with 40-50% humidity. Guess we'll see how it works out.

 

[ozexpat]

Wow you guys are hardcore! My little homemade job looks sad in comparison!

Here it is anyway:




My mission for this was to spend a little money as possible so it's mostly things I had around the house. I made it out of a clear Rubbermaid container that's about 1 and a half feet on each side. It was previously used to grow mushrooms so it has a 4 inch diameter circle cut in the middle of one side that was covered with an air filter patch. I cut a hole in the middle of that patch to put in a 40 watt light bulb and the cord for a gutted laptop cooling fan. I insulated the whole thing with a few layers of paper grocery bags. The fan sits on a tiny dish of water since I live in Colorado and air humidity is usually really low. I refill the water when it gets low, other than that it runs right about 100 with 40-50% humidity. Guess we'll see how it works out.

it looks perfect. good luck. quail are fun!

 

[backyardklukker]

You've got the temp and the humidity right. You should have no problems. It doesn't matter what it's made of. The point is there are a million and one ways to build an incubator. And I thought people would just like to see some of those ways in case they may want to try it out for themselves. They have no idea how much fun it can be. Goodluck with the quail. You're incubator is much more creative than mine. I went with designed products to do what they do. You pieced together a work of art. Congratulations. It's awesome.

 

[Jessshan8]

Here is the best bator I ever made. I made it last winter. Not much else to do in north west Montana in the winter, (unless your into skiing). Quite a deal of work as it took me a little over a month to complete in my spare time. It has two sides as you can see. One side is an incubator with the other side a hatcher to facilitate staggered incubation and hatching. It works really well and I hatched about 200 chicks, turkeys and pheasants this last summer with it. It didn't cost me all that much really and is made from recycled material from a job I had done remodeling a house.

List of materials:
Pine wood tongue and groove - free, recycled
door hardware - free, recycled
Glass for doors - $15.00
2 thermostats - $30.00 (Ebay)
2 humidity indicators - $5.00 (Ebay)
roll aluminum tape - $ 8.00
Everything else I already had IE: egg turners,

 

[backyardklukker]

That is super nice. That's one of the best incubator cabinets I've ever seen for going inside the house. I only placed the minimal amount of decency for my wife to keep mine inside our den. I will build another in the next few months. Hopefully it looks as good as yours does. I've seen entertainment centers and china cabinets that didn't look that good. That's awesome.