Getting a home made incubator for Mothers Day!- Need Plans???

[Minky]

Does anyone have any proven home made incubator plans/ideas/set up that they would like to share with me?
My husband has said he will endeavour to build me an incubator for Mothers Day ( since I got nada for my bday) LOL

Thanks in advance....

Oh, and any auto egg- turner ideas??

 

[MGG]

Does anyone have any proven home made incubator plans/ideas/set up that they would like to share with me?
My husband has said he will endeavour to build me an incubator for Mothers Day ( since I got nada for my bday) LOL

Thanks in advance....

Oh, and any auto egg- turner ideas??

I really love the homemade incubator idea, but it's really best to just buy one. You can get a decent one for the same price (if not better) as a good homemade one. A few years ago my whole family worked really hard on one, spent quite a bit on it, made it super nice, etc. We put in a few eggs after a test run, and after 30 eggs and multiple batches we never hatched a single chick. They usually developed for a little while and then just quit. We even had several calibrated thermometers and hydrometers, and a good turning schedule. I finally bought one, and I've never had a hatch rate below 90%. It's been awesome. The one I currently have was $65 on Amazon. It was worth every penny. Just my opinion. Good luck with whatever you decide on.

 

[Minky]

Wow, that is cheap. The cheapest styrofoam incubator here in canada is about $250. Without the $130 egg turner. (I would want to do at least 40 eggs at a time).
Well hubby already a bunch of parts and he seems keen on making it.
I just thought someone may want to share what has worked and not worked for them.

 

[MGG]

Wow, that is cheap. The cheapest styrofoam incubator here in canada is about $250. Without the $130 egg turner. (I would want to do at least 40 eggs at a time).
Well hubby already a bunch of parts and he seems keen on making it.
I just thought someone may want to share what has worked and not worked for them.

Are you doing styrofoam or wood?

 

[Minky]

The $250 plus egg turner I quoted was just for styrofoam. The Little Giant.

We will make ours from Styrofoam as well, I would imagine. Or a plastic tub lined with styrofoam?
We have a lot of materials around the homestead to scrounge from.

 

[MGG]

The $250 plus egg turner I quoted was just for styrofoam. The Little Giant.

We will make ours from Styrofoam as well, I would imagine. Or a plastic tub lined with styrofoam?
We have a lot of materials around the homestead to scrounge from.

I would model it off of the Hovabator. It's a really nice styrofoam incubator.

 

[Acre4Me]

Here is a link I saved some time ago.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...w-we-did-it-and-test-run-ready-set-go.861788/

It looks like a good start. I would look to use a different material than wood inside the incubator. Maybe wood is ok, but humidity and wood might not be a good combo long term.

I made a small incubator a couple of years ago and got pretty good hatching rates on quail.

Heat shield is metal lid from a bent lunchbox. Lightbulb was 25 watt, I think, ceramic socket. Attached to a dimmer - outside of the incubator. Piece of wood to support the egg trays. 2 layers of plexiglass - one layer caused condensation, so two seemed necessary and no more condensation after the two layers installed.

To vary humidity, it worked well to have holes in the water filled glass and then move it above the light, or away from the light as needed for more or less humidity.

Change I would make: put the lightbulb closer to the bottom of the cooler. it is a still air incubator, so more airflow would have occurred with heating the cooler air that sank, causing it to rise better and create more of a thermal flow. If you can see, the HWC is raised up off the bottom, but flat, then vertical, then a horizontal shelf where I put the water and protected the lightbulb from any thing hitting it.

I rotated eggs 3x per day. I took the 2 layers out, put bottom on top, then turned the whole thing 180 degrees and put it back in. Generally, using paper trays isn't a great idea, but it seemed to work out ok. Should also note that I sat this whole thing inside a larger-than-the-incuabator (but not taller) cardboard box to try to help mitigate temp fluctuations. Seemed to help.

Cost: Styrofoam cooler bought at store ($5?), light bulbs to test out for temp, dimmer. Everything else we already had.

Good Luck and Happy Mother's Day!