Has anyone made a homemade incubator?

[chickie fam]

Has anyone made a homemade incubator? What kind of luck did you have with it and what did you use to make it?

 

[Inkheart]

 

[amyquilt]

I have been using my home made incubator for 2 years. Some hatches I have fantastic results, others I don't.

I made mine following MissPrissy's instructions here on BYC using the +/- $5 foam ice chest from Walmart.

Go to my blog at www.crazyforthecountry.com and click on animals under topics. There are posts with photos and youtube videos showing the incubator.

 

[mstricer]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/chicken-coop-incubator.html
I think quite a few have, me not that persistent.

 

[greeneacre]

I put mine together following the Gopherbator listed in the coop section. After the first hatch- 50% of shipped eggs. made some modifications and it has been running steady since October. best hatch so far with shipped eggs 77% of eggs that made it to lockdown. I will be setting my own eggs on Valentines day. I have also made a styrofoam hatcher with the same wiring set up to hatch in. makes it easier to do staggered hatches.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Ive built several out of all kinds of stuff, all with good results.

 

[gumbii]

i'll let you know on the tenth...


i made a fridgabator... i was gonna make a thread about it, but it's all fail and has to be redone... so after these monsters hatch, i'll make a build with details and everything... especially for the turner and such...

 

[HEChicken]

DH and I built one just before Christmas and our chicks hatched this past weekend. I placed an ad on Freecycle asking for an Omaha Steaks cooler and got one. Other than that, all the materials we already had around the house. Let's see - scrap piece of 1/4" hardware cloth to make a shelf (placed two water bowls under the shelf which saved some space and meant the chicks couldn't fall in the water and drown after they hatched). A 25W light bulb. I used another piece of 1/4" hardware cloth to make a protective "fence" around the lightbulb so the chicks couldn't stagger into it and burn themselves. I also looked in my recyclables and found a foil pie pan that I cut to shield the chicks from the bright light - placed it just inside the fence. An old computer fan provided "forced air". The thermostat I already had from years ago when I needed it for reptiles. I made a window in top of the cooler, and used a 10x13 piece of glass from an old photo frame to make a window. I chiseled out a little styrofoam so that the "window" sits down in the cooler top just like the glass does in a picture frame. For thermometers - I had a few from my reptile keeping days. I added a Springfield from Walmart ($6 because it also has a hygrometer. The thermometer on it never worked accurately - it read 102.3 throughout incubation, even though all of the other thermometers read 99-100, but I calibrated the hygrometer and it was perfect so I left it in there. Anyway, all told it took maybe 45 mins - 2 hours to put together (I wasn't timing and no longer remember exactly) and it worked brilliantly. The temp/humidity never wavered and the chicks hatched beautifully.

 

[HEChicken]

And here are some of the chicks:

 

[quintinp]

i just made an incubator, it is posted right now in the incubating and hatching eggs index