cece119
Chirping
I just started hatching last year. I own 3 incubators one still air little giant, & 2 forced air farm innovators. I started with the little giant. At the time I did not understand the difference between the incubators. After my first hatch I decided to buy another to use one to incubaet and one to hatch so that I only had one that got dirty. I found that my hatch rate did not do very well moving from forced air to still air or visa versa. I decided to go with a second forced air so that I could do what I had originally planned. When purchasing the last two I went with the Farm Innovators because they had the plastic outside the styrofoam and I thought that they would be "better". My favorite one was the Pro Series digital 4250. It has a huge window, everything is digital and fancy. It even had a count down. I figured the whole hatch process for chicks and ducks then struggled till I figured out how to hatch turkeys. I am currently on quail. One thing I noticed early on is that my incubator was leaking and because I didnt notice it right away, my kitchen table was now ruined by mold. I looked here and it didnt seem like a real problem for anyone else other than LG users. So, I continued to incubate putting a towel under and then I had a moldy towel and a new mold spot on my table. UGH! So I changed to plastic wrap under the incubator to protect my table but still dealing with the leak. I stopped putting water in the wells and just used a sponge. It worked better but still had a leak. Not only did I have this problem but I started having problems with the temperature. I did have to set it a little higher because it was not the correct temperature but it would spike and drop constantly. Im talking 107-86. Sometimes it would say that the temp was right and keep heating up. I would have to unplug it and plug it back in to reset it. I have had this less than a year with all these problems. I contacted the company asking the life of the incubator. It has to be more than a couple hatches right???? I got no response. After getting so frustrated I changed out the top of my incubator or my manual Farm innovator. No more spikes!!! I did notice that I was still leaking 
Still thinking it had to be me that was making this thing leak, like overfilling the sponges or spilling and going out the hole???? I finally got fed up and pulled the plastic off the bottom, MOLD smell about knocked me out! I cleaned it and dried it and filled the wells with water making sure not to overfill or spill any. About 15 min later I decided to check...IT WAS ALREADY LEAKING!!! So, I got my other bottom and put water in it to see if it was leaking. Silly me, it also has a plastic bottom and it takes a little while longer to see if it is leaking because it has to fill the bottom and then leak out of those holes. Because I already have eggs going and should be in lock down, I dont want to just quit right now. I am switching out the bottoms and NEVER using my 4250 again! After this hatch I have about a week before I have another chicken hatch scheduled I am going to look at this other one and see if I am also having problems with it. I have done both at the same time and they could both be leaking or just the one. I really hope it is just the one because I hate throwing money away. I am thinking of seeing if I can add the fan to the Little Giant so it is no longer a still air but we will see.
So, after all of this story, I just want to make sure that my incubator should not leak right????
I am so frustrated I feel like I should upgrade to something better...any ideas on that? Should I just throw that one out and use the other one? If you guys think I should change to something different, what do you suggest?
Still thinking it had to be me that was making this thing leak, like overfilling the sponges or spilling and going out the hole???? I finally got fed up and pulled the plastic off the bottom, MOLD smell about knocked me out! I cleaned it and dried it and filled the wells with water making sure not to overfill or spill any. About 15 min later I decided to check...IT WAS ALREADY LEAKING!!! So, I got my other bottom and put water in it to see if it was leaking. Silly me, it also has a plastic bottom and it takes a little while longer to see if it is leaking because it has to fill the bottom and then leak out of those holes. Because I already have eggs going and should be in lock down, I dont want to just quit right now. I am switching out the bottoms and NEVER using my 4250 again! After this hatch I have about a week before I have another chicken hatch scheduled I am going to look at this other one and see if I am also having problems with it. I have done both at the same time and they could both be leaking or just the one. I really hope it is just the one because I hate throwing money away. I am thinking of seeing if I can add the fan to the Little Giant so it is no longer a still air but we will see.So, after all of this story, I just want to make sure that my incubator should not leak right????
I am so frustrated I feel like I should upgrade to something better...any ideas on that? Should I just throw that one out and use the other one? If you guys think I should change to something different, what do you suggest?
