Can anyone help me with building my own incubator? I have tried the hot water thermostat/light bulb method several times and failed. Is there any other way?
I also use a rubber maid tub. I cut out the middle of the lid, and zip tied chicken wire onto the top. Chicks do fine in it, and the cats can sit on top of it and watch the chicks without eating them....
We built our incubator using an old cooler, thermostat, computer fan and light bulbs. I've done 3 hatches with it. First hatch we got 8 chicks out of 10 eggs. Next hatch we only got 3 chicks out of 14 (but I do suspect many of the eggs weren't fertile) and the last hatch we just finished we're shipped eggs. Those we got 7 chicks out of 14. I was going to add a picture of our "cooler-bator" but can't figure out how to do it on my iPad.
We made ours in a cooler with a 75W halogen light bulb for heat, an open jar of water under the bulb for humidity, a couple of muffin fans to circulate the air, and some water bottles as a heat sink. The bulb was attached to a PID controller to regulate the temperature.
