Consolidated Kansas

[Ivywoods]

When I got home tonight I checked the 'bater. I have one lavender ameraucana fully hatched, one fully zipped and a black copper marans that just made it out of the shell!

While I was looking in the incubator and turning the other eggs the incubator suddenly quit. Heater, fan, everything!

It was panic city for a minute
until I realized I had accidently kicked the power cord out of the outlet.

 

[BrahmaBoy27]

What kind of incubator do you have???? are they pretty easy to operate>>>?? ive been wanting to get one but dont know the best brand, i have been looking at the brinsea 7 egg incubator to start out with, is it worth the 150.00 price tag????

 

[Hawkeye95]

ShowinBirds---

AND Welcome to the Consolidated Kansas thread! You'll enjoy it here! There are a lot of other birds on this site too-- like ducks, game, turkey, etc...

Ivy, wow, I would have been in a panic too! How funny! I sure am glad that was the problem and not some to do with the wiring or whatever. ha! Congrats on those babies! More marans!!! I can't wait to start hatching tooooo!! LOL!

BrahmaBoy, I have the Brinsea Octagon 20 and I got it on sale for $99! But of course, then they charge you for shipping! If you go to their FaceBook page and sign up for their newletter, they will give you a 20% off coupon code. But don't do it until you are ready to buy, because it expires 2 weeks after you sign up. Also, they do run other sales-- for various holidays! So keep watching the prices and sales. Then when your incubator goes on sale, then you can use your newletter coupon code on top of that and get it down a bit. I think I still paid something like $120 (plus shipping) when mine went on sale (and using the coupon). I didn't buy the turner for the Octagon-- yet. I haven't used my incubator yet either! So I really can't say I recommend it. However, I did read up on various incubators for a few weeks before settling on Brinsea. They just had amazing reviews and whole forums on these incubators. People really love them. If I had money to just blow, I'd probably buy an RCom, too. (they are waaaaaay out of my price range)

I said I put Cocoa back into the coop with the others yesterday, right? I did it during the day and then fed everyone treats (BOSS) out on the ground. Cocoa went nuts-- she flapped and ran around and went after the treats. Everyone ignored her except one of my Wyandottes and she went after her and tried pulling out her crest feathers! Yikes! So I grabbed that Wyandotte and she is now in Cocoa's cage in the garage to cool her jets for a few days. Sheesh. It was cute though-- the other polish went right up to Cocoa like they were saying "hello!" and they seemed excited and happy to see her. They were all crowding around her and eating with her and being really nice to her. Those Polish are very sweet birds!

 

[chicken danz]

Ivy that sounds like something I would do... have done quite recently. Panic city!
Tweety, I think on the contrary a chicken could hatch ducks. It would be a matter of timing though. You would have to make sure she had a special spot where she wanted to go broody, set the duck eggs under her, and remove any chicken eggs she laid for about a week, then let her lay a few or add some from another chicken if she has stopped laying on her own. I personally think the humidity would be fine as long as there is plenty of shavings or bedding under her so the underside is 'insulated to some point.
Ducks and chickens incubate at the same temp. I've had ducks sit on chicken eggs and visa versa before but have pulled them and put them in the incubator. I can provide you with some duck eggs for nothing later if we can figure out a way to get them to you. Or if you want to take a short cut, I hatch anconas and cayugas which are both wonderful big non flying domestic ducks.

 

[chicken danz]

brahma boy, I like my GQFs but of course they are for serious hatchers. I had luck with the Little giant styros, but you have to make a couple of modifications so they'll hold more water for humidity for the best hatches. Also a fan and turner are pretty essential although some people hatch without them. You have the absolute best incubator already. Brahmas tend to want to go broody. Maybe you could wait and see if one of your girls decides to go broody this spring. I have one sitting on eggs right now that should be hatching any day.
Here's the news update. I just gave Marshmallow her second shot. But she was up last night and eating and drinking and has asked to go outside and pee a couple times. Thank you God!
She and the pups are doing well at this point. When I get home form church I'm going to move them back to the doghouse. I think it will be warm enough no one will stress

 

[cherwill]

Here's the news update. I just gave Marshmallow her second shot. But she was up last night and eating and drinking and has asked to go outside and pee a couple times. Thank you God!
She and the pups are doing well at this point. When I get home form church I'm going to move them back to the doghouse. I think it will be warm enough no one will stress

I'm so glad to hear that!

 

[Nana2KJS]

What kind of incubator do you have???? are they pretty easy to operate>>>?? ive been wanting to get one but dont know the best brand, i have been looking at the brinsea 7 egg incubator to start out with, is it worth the 150.00 price tag????

We are definitely just hobby hatchers. My grandsons are homeschooled - I got the little Brinsea as much for their enjoyment/education as anything. It is definitely a set 'em and forget 'em incubator. We set 6 of Chooks eggs last summer. All but the cracked/glued one hatched with little to no interaction from me.

Kind of depends on how much you want to hatch, but so far we've had great succes with ours.

 

[Ivywoods]

I have a GQF. It is a super old model, but works just as well as a new one. I gave $150 for it and it has worked perfectly from the day I got it. Well, it doesn't work so well when you kick the power cord out!

I also have another GQF that I use for a hatcher. It is a little newer. I gave $150 for it, too, but have had to do some modifications on it. It needed a new wafer thermostat, which is not expensive and I had to make lids for all the hatching trays, which is no big deal, either. My DH recently put a reostat on the fan because the thing blew like a hurricane. Now we can adjust it however much we want. It had way more air flow than it needed.

If you are just wanting to hatch a few eggs, these would be pretty big and take up quite a big of space. I don't know the dimensions, but you can look them up on ebay or a number of poultry suppliers that sell them. They are expensive to buy new. Once in a while one comes up on craigslist, and that is where I found both of mine. You can still buy parts for all of the old ones.

As far as smaller incubators, I really don't know. I've heard a lot of good things about the Brinsea, but I know they are expensive for what they are. My recommendation would be no matter what incubator you buy, get a circulated air model with a turner! Oh, how I wish I had a turner in mine. I guess that is a modification I'm just going to have to make one of these days. I know I don't turn my eggs as much as I should.

Hope you find just what you want!

What kind of incubator do you have???? are they pretty easy to operate>>>?? ive been wanting to get one but dont know the best brand, i have been looking at the brinsea 7 egg incubator to start out with, is it worth the 150.00 price tag????

 

[Ivywoods]

brahma boy, I like my GQFs but of course they are for serious hatchers. I had luck with the Little giant styros, but you have to make a couple of modifications so they'll hold more water for humidity for the best hatches. Also a fan and turner are pretty essential although some people hatch without them. You have the absolute best incubator already. Brahmas tend to want to go broody. Maybe you could wait and see if one of your girls decides to go broody this spring. I have one sitting on eggs right now that should be hatching any day.
Here's the news update. I just gave Marshmallow her second shot. But she was up last night and eating and drinking and has asked to go outside and pee a couple times. Thank you God!
She and the pups are doing well at this point. When I get home form church I'm going to move them back to the doghouse. I think it will be warm enough no one will stress

 

[Hawkeye95]

Danz--- YAY!!! I'm so glad that Marshmallow is feeling better! That is fabulous news!!

We skipped church this morning. Hardly ever do that. But it was too much this morning-- my oldest had a birthday party/sleep over last night and i picked him up this morning in a town over from here, plus had a few things to do. Now just cleaning house and picking up and purging more!! Going through all the kids closets and it seems that every time I do another load of laundry, I see a few things to donate, but they need to be washed first. So it's a slow process, but I've got several more bags ready to go.

I have 3 Seymore eggs now!!!