Harris Farms Nurture Right 360 Incubator is AMAZING!

[centrarchid]

To stabilize temperature and humidity, my unit is in a room with several large aquariums. The unit is placed directly on top of a larger tank to drawn in humid air from above water that is maintained at a stable temperature using a submersible heater.

Limitation for me this year has been conditions eggs experienced prior of collection from nest. From this point on eggs will not be exposed to freezing temperatures which should bring hatch rate well above the 50% we have with first two batches. Previous two springs I also had poor hatch rates with eggs collected early because they got chilled before collected.

 

[CrisAnderson27]

Trucking along! 15 days to go!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Yes on the variable. I'm figuring if I closely plotted the position of the sensor at the low spots, it would be fairly consistent.

With the humidity, it's fairly humid here. In talking with a few people that have had great hatches in the area, they recommend between 20% and 30% early on. Check the air pocket at day 7 etc, and adjust accordingly. They say it's easier to slow air pocket development than it is to increase it later in the hatch. I guess the pocket responds to humidity better than it does to the lack of it?

They also recommend this incubator, so we'll see .

It's extremely humid here in South East Georgia and while I do agree that I prefer to run my humidity lower than what is recommended on most incubator instructions. Just FYI, plastic incubators seem to be dryer than styrofoam incubators in general. I do have central air, so it dries out the air in my home significantly compared to outside but in general when I ran plastic incubators beside styrofoam in the same room, under the same conditions, they would run approximately 10% lower with no water added vs the styrofoam. So while many people have great success with dry hatching in my area as well, it's better in a styrofoam incubator or if you're keeping your incubator in a room without central air but in my experience it's better not to run them completely dry and putting enough water to at least get the humidity around 35%. All of my hatches run somewhere between 35-55% this year, based off of air cell growth (most of the time right at 45%). As long as you're tracking weight or air cell growth you should be just fine but wanted to make you aware of my experience. A lot of hatching is based off of experimenting with your incubator under your conditions.

 

[CrisAnderson27]

It's extremely humid here in South East Georgia and while I do agree that I prefer to run my humidity lower than what is recommended on most incubator instructions. Just FYI, plastic incubators seem to be dryer than styrofoam incubators in general. I do have central air, so it dries out the air in my home significantly compared to outside but in general when I ran plastic incubators beside styrofoam in the same room, under the same conditions, they would run approximately 10% lower with no water added vs the styrofoam. So while many people have great success with dry hatching in my area as well, it's better in a styrofoam incubator or if you're keeping your incubator in a room without central air but in my experience it's better not to run them completely dry and putting enough water to at least get the humidity around 35%. All of my hatches run somewhere between 35-55% this year, based off of air cell growth (most of the time right at 45%). As long as you're tracking weight or air cell growth you should be just fine but wanted to make you aware of my experience. A lot of hatching is based off of experimenting with your incubator under your conditions.

Totally understand! It's actually much more humid there, than here lol. I'm in South West Virginia...2 miles in either direction from both Tennessee, and Kentucky. Most of our humidity comes from the weather generated by being in a valley of the Appalachians.

I actually added no water at all after the initial setup yesterday (it went way up into the mid 50's with just 8ml of water added to A). Last night it seemed to stabilize in the high 20's, which is what I wanted to see...where the baseline was. With just 2ml of water put into A this morning, it went from 27% to nearly 38%, and seems to be holding right around 36%. I'm actually curious if adding just 8ml raises it to over 50%...what filling the thing would do lol.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Totally understand! It's actually much more humid there, than here lol. I'm in South West Virginia...2 miles in either direction from both Tennessee, and Kentucky. Most of our humidity comes from the weather generated by being in a valley of the Appalachians.

I actually added no water at all after the initial setup yesterday (it went way up into the mid 50's with just 8ml of water added to A). Last night it seemed to stabilize in the high 20's, which is what I wanted to see...where the baseline was. With just 2ml of water put into A this morning, it went from 27% to nearly 38%, and seems to be holding right around 36%. I'm actually curious if adding just 8ml raises it to over 50%...what filling the thing would do lol.

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Perfect! I fill port A all the way in the beginning usually because I won't need to fill it as often. The humidity is based on the exposed surface so if the amount of water you put in covers the entire circumference of the ring then it shouldn't actually change by filling it all the way. It may be different with the newest model but mine hold 4oz on the "A" side. I fill it completely, open the vent all the way, pull the plug out if port "B" for extra ventilation a d the humidity is usually right at 45-55% depending on how many eggs I have in the incubator (Because the eggs themselves release moisture as well).

 

[centrarchid]

Perfect! I fill port A all the way in the beginning usually because I won't need to fill it as often. The humidity is based on the exposed surface so if the amount of water you put in covers the entire circumference of the ring then it shouldn't actually change by filling it all the way. It may be different with the newest model but mine hold 4oz on the "A" side. I fill it completely, open the vent all the way, pull the plug out if port "B" for extra ventilation a d the humidity is usually right at 45-55% depending on how many eggs I have in the incubator (Because the eggs themselves release moisture as well).

Have you been toggling the vent on top of the incubator?

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Have you been toggling the vent on top of the incubator?

I leave the vent open all the way at all times.

 

[centrarchid]

I have shifted over to right starting day 18 through hatch causing humidity to shoot up into 60's percent.

 

[Livingthehenlife]

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I know with Spring right around the corner, and chick fever setting in there are a lot of people out there looking to purchase their first incubator, or maybe you're still looking for that incubator with a better hatch rate that doesn't cost you an arm and a leg, so I wanted to share my experience!

I did a lot of research before purchasing an incubator and there are good and bad reviews for even the most expensive incubators out there so taking my budget into account and what I wanted from my incubator I am SO happy with the results I got from my new Harris Farms Nurture Right 360! If you do your own research on the incubator most of the bad reviews you will find are on a couple of design flaws in the older models where the holes covering the fan were too large and it needed a cover on the digital readout to prevent it from shorting out from the high humidity at hatch time. In the newer models, these issues have been resolved but if you get an older incubator you can email the company and they will send you the appropriate parts to fix it.

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So back to the PROS of this incubator, at least for me!
- It comes with an automatic turner! I found that the most reasonable incubators often require manual egg turning and if you purchase the accompanying auto turner you find yourself around the same price as this incubator or more.
- It also has an egg candler built-in to the top of the incubator. It worked well for the sake of testing it but I will admit that I didn't use it much because I prefer my little high lumen flashlight.
- The visibility all the way around the incubator was a HUGE selling point for me! I could say it was for my daughter to be able to learn from the experience but if I'm being really honest, I most definitely spent the most hours sitting in front of the incubator in awe as the chicks hatched. lol
- The temperature and humidity stayed stable throughout the entire incubation process as long as you add distilled water daily.
- You add water from outside of the incubator so you don't disturb the temp and humidity.
- The company calibrated the thermometer and hygrometer well and I didn't have to go through the headache of trying to adjust it myself.
- This is thanks to the visibility as well but I was able to clearly see that all of the chicks hatched with zero issues. The eggs zipped cleanly and chicks were healthy! Yes, some of this is from genetics but it makes a big difference when the temp and humidity stay stable for the chicks ease of hatching.
- Because I was incubating different breeds my smaller eggs hatched earlier and I didn't want to leave the chicks in too long. Since the larger eggs hadn't pipped yet I took the risk of quickly opening the incubator and removing the hatched chicks. While I don't recommend doing that, what I was pleasantly surprised to find is that the humidity returned to normal in seconds and the rest of the chicks hatched without issue.

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CONS
- The top is a bit cumbersome to open and close but once you get used to it it's not so bad. I have also seen where someone used the adhesive plastic hooks and attached them to the sides upside down so that it was easier to hook their fingers under and open.
- The incubator holds 22 eggs but I feel like it would be very cramped in there if all of the eggs are viable at the time of hatch. I had quite a few infertile eggs because they were the first eggs of the season (8 infertile eggs to be exact) and 2 were quitters early in embryo development (it's impossible for me to know if the 2 quitters were due to the incubator or something else but I feel with my experience that it's less likely to be related to the incubator). All but one of the developed chicks hatched successfully and I candled right before lockdown and didn't feel good about that egg prior to closing the lid. It was also a poopy egg that I was hatching for a friend, I typically only use clean eggs as the bacteria can enter the porous shell and may have been responsible for the late embryo death. So my first run with the incubator gave me approximately 80% hatch rate (not including the infertile eggs). I anticipate having an even better hatch when I'm pickier about the eggs I set to begin with. - I'll update this later.

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***I promise all of these pictures were taken through the plastic. I did not open the incubator to take pictures. lol

For anyone that reads this far through the thread I would assume you're actually interested in the incubator. So the best tip I have is that I used a condiment bottle to add the water and I left the vent open all the way through the entire incubation because I felt the ventilation was important and it didn't effect my ability to keep the humidity where I wanted it.
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So my experience was great! I'd love to hear about your experiences with the Nurture Right 360!
I'll be participating in the Easter Hatch-A-Long with the same incubator so I will update my opinion if it changes.

I completely agree, this incubator is awesome. I’m very very happy with its performance.

 

[CrisAnderson27]

Current state! Of the 6 Ayam Cemani eggs (the first 6 candled), two look unfertalized, two seem to have blood rings, and two seem ok. The video cut short...but most of the Ameraucana have obvious embryo development. A few were just dark with some blood vessels though? I'm not sure what that means.

Overall still very happy.