When I cleaned my 48 egg incubator I used a dilution of water/bleach and let it dry completely. I tried hatching 12 BO eggs. All firtle. I made the mistake of going by what the digital read out says and had a 0 hatch. I won't do that again..
I hatched 7 out of 9 in one of those. One egg clear and one blood ring. They will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. I never could figure out how to adjust that temp. But I had two thermometers in it that both read about right so I left it the way it came at 38* and they hatched on day 21. I worried a lot over the humidity. It was very cold then and I felt like the house was very dry. When I candled at day 8 and then 14 I thought the air cells were smallish. So I quit adding water till day 19. One pipped the wrong end of shell but hatched just fine anyway.My first time using the Janoel 12 incubator - a bit iffy at first but I think I've sorted it out and now I'm 2 days into incubating eggs. I've learnt quite a bit about it, and figured I'd share my experience.
So there it is, and you can see the tiny tube that I've fed down to the bottom that I use to inject water without opening it all up. I have it set to 37.8 degrees celcius, for my coturnix quail, but during my test run I realized the thermostat on the incubator was totally wrong.
This is my thermometer/hydrometer for the inside, which I have on the egg level. I would REALLY recommend getting one of these, costs barely anything from ebay. I knew it was cheap, but I checked it with the clock in my kitchen and it had the humidity and temperature exactly the same (to 0.1) so I decided to trust it. The key to using this incubator is adjusting the temperature display on the top - which is not properly explained in the poorly translated instruction manual. If you just use it and go by the temperature displayed you'll probably end up cooking all your eggs. You need to hold the 'set' button for 3 seconds to get the menu, then press the + button until you get to CA which is temperature correction. The value mine came set on was -1.3, and it can be a positive or minus number I think it depends on the ambient temperature of the room. You need to run the bator for a couple of hours, then check the temp at egg level and compare it with the temp that the incubator is displaying (which is where the second thermometer is essential). Then you should change the CA value accordingly - I have mine on -1.6 now and have had to change it when it got really cold (not sure why). You should end up the temperature display on the top reading the same as the one at egg level, and then you're good to go
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[/COLOR] Sorry about the poor photo quality. Don't worry if the temperature fluctuates a bit because I find the temperature display reacts quick to changes whilst the internal temperature takes longer to adjust. Also don't set the temperature correction to 0 and panic when it displays something like 40, it's not that hot inside, it's just how they've calibrated the display to the thermostat. It's a shame the incubator doesn't have humidity control - I've checked and the Janoel 12 definitely doesn't. The HU and HD settings aren't anything to do with humidity, they're set by the factory, so just ignore them. I find it's fine just injecting a bit of water into the bottom twice a day which brings it up to about 50%, and sponges will hopefully be fine after lockdown. I'm hoping I can get the best out of this cheap incubator, and I hope this is helpful for anyone else who's as confused as I was
That's what my problem was. I didn't have any thermometers in mine and depended on the built in one completely. I couldn't get the hydrometer to read over 50%. I'm prepared and ready for the next time. I bought 3 thermometers/hydrometers to put in there. I'm going to place them in various areas at egg level. I think that if your going to trust the built in digital system you might as well just throw the eggs away. I had no luck at all.
