Cabinet style incubator and other questions

[mustangsaguaro]

So, I have a friend that used to raise ostriches no longer raises them and she has a big cabinet style incubator. She is giving me this incubator for free. I don't know the brand name of it but am wondering if I could use it to incubate chicken eggs or any other type of eggs for that manner. My husband is pretty handy and could probably come up w/ some design to hold the eggs seeing that this was originally made for ostrich eggs. Question is when she was incubating ostrich eggs they used a totally separate unit for a hatcher. Could this type of incubator be modified to act as a hatcher too? I would think I could just turn up/down the humidity and it could act as a hatcher. Those of you that have cabinet style incubators are yours made specifically for chicken eggs?

So, I decided I wanted to make a little extra money so I put an ad on craigslist thinking I would get no response but got three responses. It was to see if there was a need in my area for people that wanted eggs be it chicken, duck, turkey, etc. to be incubated if they didn't have an incubator for themselves or a broody hen I would do it for them. I got 3 responses and my last respones the woman if I read the email correctly had 70 quail eggs and 37 silkie eggs to be incubated. Thinking I wouldn't get a response I had some eggs shipped to me 9 are under my broody and 3 in the incubator. So, needless to say I can't help this lady out. I'd say if she wanted to do the silkie eggs I could. My question is I'm not looking to get rich by doing this just maybe make a little extra money. What would one charge for this type of service. I want to be fair on pricing. Basically just looking to defer the cost of electricity and I told her I would also candle eggs as needed. So looking to make a small amount on my time involved. What do you all think would be a fair price to do this type of thing?

Thanks

 

[jm93030]

All incubators can be used as hatchers

but one thing at the time

either an incubator or a hatcher

can't do both at the same time sisn ce humidity is so diferent


as far as charging for incubation services , all depends on you

you can charge for hatched chicks or for dozend of eggs

but rememeber that customers want results and tehy spect good ones for their money


i rather charge $2 dls for each hatched chick than 12 dls for each dozen of eggs


but up to you

 

[quintinp]

Quote:
I would go with a $1 to $1.50 for chickens that hatch, and 75 cents for the quail chicks that hatch. When I hatch my OWN eggs I charge $1.50. I have got $2.50 for chicks.

 

[Flawedatdesign]

Well what I have going is I'm incubating a friends eggs. I do the work we split the Hatched chicks. I made sure he knew up front that there was a chance of nothing hatching. Due to infertile eggs etc etc.

 

[Saltysteele]

what type is it? is it an older model, slightly old or newer. is it a redwood incubator?

through playing with the vents and differing amounts of water added to the chambers (if multiple chambers are available; more surface area of water exposed, higher humidity) you can take them from low humidity dry incubations to high humidity hatches.

we have had several successful staggered hatches using the same incubator to incubate and also hatch several batches of eggs a week apart from the previous. you can incubate and hatch in the same incubator

as far as cost of incubation and what it would take to break even or make a profit, i don't know. you'd have to figure out how much your fan, lights and everything else electrical was rated at and guesstimate what it takes to run per cycle.

what does it have for holding the eggs? are they trays? if it's just a tray, you can just use a plain old egg carton to hold the wide end up. or, anything you can prop the egg against securely (so it's not rolling around) to hold the wide end up, really. our trays have wires that are squiggly that the egg rests against. the wires come out for hatching to allow the chicks to move around once hatched and to prevent trapping

 

[quintinp]

Quote:
lol If you knew how to vent sex you could get most of the females, and leave him with the roos.

 

[okiedrifter]

not nice but true....I also hatch on the halves.....or a dollar a chick they provide the eggs....15 dozen at a time

 

[mustangsaguaro]

Quote:
I know it is not a redwood incubator. This incubator is really big maybe about 4' tall, width I'm not sure. I will be going next week to take a look at what brand it is. I know it is an older model as my friend got into raising/breeding ostriches when it was big. I'd say it is a early 1990's to mid 1990's model.

Not sure what it has for holding eggs. I really need to go take a look at it. I'm sure I will have to modify it for chicken eggs. I just have a really crappy foam incubator and figured if she was giving this to me for free I would take advantage of it and use it for myself for hatching my own eggs. If I was able to make a bit of money hatching others eggs. If not that's fine too. I figured when they paid for it they probably paid 4-5k for it brand new, possibly more.