GQF 1502 Incubator

[beth1004]

Hey All,

For those of you who have cabinet incubators, I ordered one. I have a couple smaller incubators and haven’t been overly happy with my hatches. I talked to the person I purchased eggs from to see what he uses. He said that he gets better hatch rates. I decided to take the plunge. While I’m waiting for it to arrive, I want to figure out as much as I can.

Concern #1
I don’t have a lot of hens so if I do succession hatches in the incubator, how do I handle the humidity?

Concern #2
I thought about hatching birds that I don’t currently have. While browsing craigslist, I saw emu eggs for sale and thought that would be fun. Have you hatched emu eggs? How successful have you been? How much do you charge for straight run emus?

Concern #3, to be determined.

thanks for any help and suggestions.

 

[mdees88]

Staggered hatches are not ideal. It's best to have an incubator and a hatcher. Maybe you can use the cabinet for incubating and possibly one of your cheaper ones for hatching.

That being said, you can do staggered hatches in the cabinet but you need to time it correctly. You need to raise the humidity very high during hatching. Once the hatching is done you need to run the humidity very low for a few days to offset the high humidity.

If done correctly it shouldn't really affect your hatch rates. There's just more to it then regular hatching.

I would recommend buying the GQF 3030 water reserve system if you haven't already. This way you're not constantly having to add water every few days. I add water at the beginning and it lasts through the entire process. I never have to open up the incubator expect to add the humidity pad at lockdown. It's very convenient but not a necessity.

 

[beth1004]

Staggered hatches are not ideal. It's best to have an incubator and a hatcher. Maybe you can use the cabinet for incubating and possibly one of your cheaper ones for hatching.

You can do staggered hatches in the cabinet though but you need to time it correctly. You need to raise the humidity very high during hatching. Once the hatching is done you need to run the humidity very low for a few days to offset the high humidity.

If done correctly it shouldn't really affect your hatch rates. There's just more to it then regular hatching.

I would recommend buying the GQF 3030 water reserve system if you haven't already. This way you're not constantly having to add water every few days. I add water at the beginning and it lasts through the entire process. I never have to open up the incubator expect to add the humidity pad at lockdown. It's very convenient but definitely not a necessity.

I ordered a reservoir as well.