I've been pulling tips from this website for over a year. I finally joined so I could thank everyone for recommending the Brinsea. I won't go over that again, I posted in the incubator section. I just wanted to introduce myself and let you guys know what I have. My wife and I started with 4 chicks on a lark 7 years ago. They just looked so cute. Buff Orpingtons. I enjoyed raising them way more than I thought, so I added more every year, but no roosters. Eventually I had 22 laying hens. Orpintons, barred rocks, speckled Sussex, black sex links, and Americaunas. I had to build a bigger coop, and thats when my infatuation with the different breeds started. My wife wanted the old coop so she could raise silkies of her own. Fast forward to now, and I have six coops and pens. The laying hens, white silkies, white crested black Polish, cuckoo marans, Mille Fleur d'uccles, and my staging pen where I keep the juveniles. This is my first year with full breeder flocks, and I wanted to incubate, so I started with a cheap still air styrofoam. I work long hours, and didn't have time to babysit the incubator like I should. The results were disastrous. Low hatch rate, crooked toes, splayed legs, etc... That was when I started looking into more advanced incubators, and here I am
Hello there and welcome to BYC! Wow, the chicken bug really took over for you! Talk about "chicken math"!!! Ha! Brinsea makes great incubators! You will have much better results with this one verses your homemade models. Good luck with all your poultry adventures and we are so glad you decided to join our community!
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. You have some great breeds and hybrids. Black Sex Links are my personal favorite. They are friendly and hardy, egg laying machines. I've raised them for years (along with dozens of other breeds and hybrids), and they have been my best layers, consistently churning out more than 300 eggs per hen per year. Brinseas are fine incubators and should work well for you. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your hatches.
Welcome to BYC! It sounds like you have a wonderful, varied flock! I'm a fan of Brinesea's incubators, too.They are so easy to use and look nice, too.
Glad you joined us. And thanks for sharing your experiences. So sorry about your disappointing hatch, good luck with the future ones.