Easy No Build Cheap Homemade Incubator

[cloudswinger]

The point was minimal construction. I've already read a lot of those links. I can see inside with a camera, and the cords coming out the door doesn't really affect the seal if you put them on the hinge side. I will try the tube thing to refill the water tray.

I don't necessarily agree that I really need more ventilation, the volume of airspace is large, and the eggs are small. How much respiration occurs across the egg shell anyways?

 

[onthespot]

I think you do need more ventilation. I have thought about doing something like this with an old fridge. I thought I would get a couple short pieces of copper tubing and tap them a few times with a hammer to flatten them somewhat, tape a couple of them to the bottom of the door frame, a couple at the top, with caps to vary the rate of exchange as needed. Have not actually gotten up off my duff to TRY OUT my idea now... have I. Report back the results so I know if I need to get up off my duff and do mine like that.

 

[cloudswinger]

Ok, reporting on my first quail hatch. I had 44 set, and 18 have hatched now on day 18. I had a spike the first day to 105, then it was pretty stable at about 101 for the first week, then I thought it was too high for a forced air, so dropped it down to about 99, although it still would go up to about 101. Humidity was kind of low at the beginning, about 40ish, then it was kind of stable at about 50, and was able to get it up to 70ish for the last few days. I didn't finish my autoturner, so was manually turning.

The tv for the video camera died, so I had to open it to check on them today, and found that the water tray was dry(forgot to add more before the final watch!), so humidity had dropped down to 40, and one chick was stuck under an egg tray and couldn't stand. So I held it on its feet for a while, and it got used to being in a standing position. I put it back in with the rest of the crowd, and watched its legs getting stronger. So far it's a 40% hatch rate, which is more than I thought I'd get with all the spikes and lowish humidity. I'm happy with 18, but I put more water in the tray and I guess I'll wait a few more days to see if any more hatch.

 

[needmorechickens!]

That's great! So glad to see that it worked, and it was a neat idea...and free!
~Rebecca

 

[cloudswinger]

Today I shut down the incubator. I had no more hatches, and after cracking the unhatched eggs, only about 6-9 more had some development. So I think that's probably a good ratio for hatching for shipped eggs. But I also lost a chick today, don't know why, because it wasn't the one trapped under the trays. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, I think next time I need to incubate I'm going to finish an autoturner, but other than that, it worked pretty well.