If I don't have enough eggs to hold up a line I just grab a piece of printer paper, tear off a chunk, crumple it, and put it in as a stopper. Anything inert (no ink, chemicals, etc.) will work, though - you could use a small clean rock in there or anything.
What completely sells me on the Brinseas versus the Hova-Bators, besides the obvious fact that I don't have to soak the
Brinsea in bleach in my bathtub to know that it's clean, is the air volume. The Brinseas are built with minimum air over the eggs. That means when you open them and close them again, the air gets warm and wet fast - I usually have complete recovery of temp and recovery/improvement in RH within about ninety seconds. When you open and close one of the styrofoam incubators, which have a huge amount of air over the eggs, it takes many minutes to recover and, even if you've got enough water in there, because so much air has to be wetted and warmed it will take the warmth and the water from the eggs as well. By the time the temp and humidity have stabilized the egg has a deficit to make up, which it often can't do if it's already pipped. The whole religion of lockdown, and the practice of leaving chicks in the incubator long after they've hatched - which is not great for them, regardless of the fact that they have a yolk sac - is based on the way a styrofoam incubator works.
During the last three days of incubating in a
Brinsea, I can open it multiple times a day to renew water, scoop out new chicks, and even do a quick top-candle to check on eggs. I never leave it open more than thirty seconds or so, but I CAN do it without risking the rest of the hatch. That right there immediately makes up for the fact that it holds fewer eggs.
And, for your $99, you get rock-solid temperatures, comparable to a 1588. I won't stand for "almost no" temperature spikes. I don't think there are any sub-$100 incubators that have solid temperature control except the
Brinsea.
I know that everybody has their preferences, but I think the
Brinsea is just so much better engineered, and shows a better understanding of what incubating eggs need, that I am completely on board. (And when I need a second one, I got another Eco, rather than ordering a Hova-Bator.)
