Help me choose a incubator please

[dheltzel]

For the price of the Brinsea you mentioned, you are very close to the price of a cabinet incubator, like this.

A Sportsman incubator is far more versatile than the Brinsea, it's functionally equivalent to a top of the line Brinsea (the Ova series) that are over $1000. I hatched over 600 chicks this year, incubating them in a well-used Sportsman (probably 10 years old, I bought it used for $450). All the small, backyard hatcheries use GQF Sportsmans, that is a great indicator to me that they work as well as Brinseas, when you makes $1000's selling chicks, even a 1-2% improvement in hatch rate would be worth spending the extra few hundred dollars for a Brinsea.

That said, I think you really should get 2 incubators, one to set and one to hatch. The hatcher doesn't need a turner, or even very accurate temperature controls, but it will let you do staggered hatches much better.

The incubator I most recommend for beginners is the Genesis Hovabator from GQF. It's much more affordable than the Brinseas and also "set and forget". You could get 2 and 1 turner for about $300, way less than any reasonable size Brinsea.

Whatever you decide to get, I'd recommend Cutler Supply as the best source. Lowest price I could find and superb service.

 

[BeachBumBiddies]

Hi! Do you ever go on Craigslist? I found a used GQF for cheap. I also found a hatcher. Both needed a little work, but for the price, it was worth it. I have also found good 'bators on Ebay. I've never had any luck with the foam things. Good luck!

 

[dheltzel]

I've had several different foam incubators over the years and still use an old picture window Hovabator as a hatcher, but the older models are under powered and hard to manage. It works as a hatcher in a temperature stable room, but I wouldn't put valuable eggs in there for the first 2 weeks of incubation - too much temperature variation.

The new Genesis is digital and 10 times better than the older ones. I'm used to having to setup the incubator and fiddle with the temp for a day or 2 before risking any eggs in there, but the first time I plugged in the Genesis it was up to 100 degrees in less than 15 minutes and stayed rock solid at that temp. Now, I just load eggs into the hatcher in a "cold" incubator and plugged it in. Come back 18 days later to remove the turner and add water. It doesn't get any simpler than that.

 

[BeachBumBiddies]

Well, I'm glad someone has had luck with them. Mine is just a plain model though. I'm so glad I found this GQF. Have some eggs in there right now. It seems to be holding temp/humidity great. Can't wait to see how many hatch. The only thing that I don't like about it is that, because it was used, it STUNK! It still does but def not as bad. I guess some people don't clean out their 'bator after every hatch. Yuck!

 

[Sustained]

Well, I'm glad someone has had luck with them. Mine is just a plain model though. I'm so glad I found this GQF. Have some eggs in there right now. It seems to be holding temp/humidity great. Can't wait to see how many hatch. The only thing that I don't like about it is that, because it was used, it STUNK! It still does but def not as bad. I guess some people don't clean out their 'bator after every hatch. Yuck!

Yuck!!

 

[Compensation]

As for the roosts I had an idea of a poop guard I could screw underneath the 2x4 and slant it down and back at a angle. Don't know if it will work but all my chickens now face the same way when roosting. This chicken stuff is all trial and error I'm starting to find out.

Now I am locked onto the 1502. It looks alot stronger built. Dependability is my next concern. I want something that will last a long time. As far as measuring temp I have a well tuned meter I use for my hvac business.

When would you transfer eggs from the nice incubator to a OK one? I think that would help the lifespan somewhat with less junk going through the fans and what not. What would be a nice cheap secondary? (Still going to search previously mentioned ones) One thing that concerns me is opening the incubator. When to open and when to leave alone. How often do you have to open? What reasons?

My next thing would be learning to shine a egg to find out what's inside? Can you tell what ones are not fertile? Will a flashlight work? I have flashlights that go up to 500 lumens, what's too bright? Can you see the bulls eye in the yoke? I'm clueless.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Traditionally we go into lockdown after 18 days of incubation. That is when you transfer them. You really don’t need to turn chicken eggs after about 14 days. Early on the body parts are forming. Turning helps them form in the right places. Also you don’t want a yolk or chick touching the inside of the shell. They can get stuck. Turning helps keep them centered. But by 14 days the body parts have formed and a membrane has formed around the chick to protect it from touching the inside of the shell. It doesn’t hurt to turn them after 14 days, you just don’t need to.

Before they hatch you should raise the humidity. When the chick pecks a hole in the shell, that membrane that formed to keep it from touching the sides of the shell can shrink around it if the air is too dry. The 21 day thing for eggs hatching is a general target, not an absolute fact of life. There are many different reasons some eggs can hatch early or late, sometimes a few days early or late. But about the most an egg can hatch early and have a good chance to survive is three days. So three days before they should hatch, you should raise the humidity. You are just trying to get the humidity up before the external pip. That’s the only magic to lockdown being after 18 days.

So after 18 days of incubation you should transfer the eggs to the hatcher. You are not turning them so you don’t need a turner in there. You increase the humidity level and don’t open it until they hatch. You don’t want to lower the humidity and take the chance of that membrane shrinking around the chick. That’s why it is called lockdown. The incubator is locked closed until they hatch.

A lot of people do open the incubator during lockdown. I will if I have a problem I need to take care of. That membrane can wrap around the chick. That doesn’t mean it absolutely will each and every time. Normally it doesn’t. But since it can happen it’s good practice to not open it during lockdown unless you have a good reason.

During the 18 days of incubation I don’t worry about opening the incubator. The instantaneous temperature is not that important unless you get ridiculous. It’s the average incubating temperature that matters. The egg is a lot denser than air. It takes it a long time to heat up or cool off. In warm weather a broody hen may leave the nest for an hour at a time to eat, drink, and poop. In cold weather that may be 15 minutes at a time.

Humidity is much the same way. Over the incubation period the egg needs to lose a certain amount of moisture. If it loses too much that membrane can dry out or the air cell may get so big the chick can’t move in the shell to position itself for hatching. If it does not lose enough moisture the air cell is too small to hold enough air for it to learn to breathe air instead of living in a liquid environment. Those chicks are soft and mushy too, which makes it harder for them to survive when the hatch. There is a pretty big window of moisture loss that will work so you don’t have to be real precise. When you open the incubator you will let the humidity out but that’s not a big deal in the first 18 days. That’s not going to change how much moisture the egg loses by any significant amount.

How often you open the incubator depends on what kind you have. If you turn the eggs by hand, you need to open it to turn them. If you have an automatic turner you never have to open it to turn eggs. How you add water makes a difference. Many incubators have water reservoirs inside that need to be refilled. You need to open them to do that. Some handle humidity in other ways so you never have to open them to add water. A lot of people like to candle the eggs to see how they are developing. You don’t have to candle them. A lot of people don’t.

If you have an automatic turner and a way to handle humidity without opening it, you don’t have to open the incubator from the time you start the eggs until you go into lockdown.

There are two ways for us to tell if an egg is fertile. You can crack an egg open and look for the bull’s eye. Of course you can’t hatch that egg, but if most of the eggs you crack are fertile, most of the eggs you don’t hatch will be too. You cannot see the bull’s eye by candling. The other way is to incubate the egg and see if it develops.

There are different ways to candle. If you look in the Learning Center at the top of this page they have one way to make a candler in there. The brighter the flashlight the better, but you still can’t see in some eggs. Dark brown eggs or the green eggs can be pretty hard to see anything inside. With some of my green eggs I do well to make out the air cell, let alone any details.

 

[MeepBeep]

A lot of people do open the incubator during lockdown. I will if I have a problem I need to take care of. That membrane can wrap around the chick. That doesn’t mean it absolutely will each and every time. Normally it doesn’t. But since it can happen it’s good practice to not open it during lockdown unless you have a good reason.

I'm one of those, I don't do any lock down, especially when I have mixed hatch dates (and that is the norm for me as I set peafowl eggs every few days as they are laid)... Knowing this I keep a small USB humidifier in the incubator, whenever I open it up while chicks are hatching I turn the humidifier on for about 5 minutes, presto high humidity... I also turn the humidifier on when I see a bird having trouble hatching to drive humidity up and help them not get sticky... Another thing you can do is have a spray bottle handy with preferably warm water but even room temp isn't horrible, when you open during the last few days, right before you close spray a few mistings into the incubator and then close it, the humidity will skyrocket temporarily and then balance back out...

 

[Compensation]

I am definitely feeling the wealth of information from this thread. I really appreciate all of your help. I feel spoiled, now just a lazy researcher on this side of the keyboard.

 

[dheltzel]

Ridgerunner has it exactly right. I recommend spending on a good incubator and cutting corners (if you need to) on the hatcher. Chicks are far less sensitive about temps during lock down (remember in a few hours they are in a brooder and have significant ability to thermoregulate). The bigger concern for me is very high humidity (shrink wrapped chicks dying makes me sad) and containing the mess.

I used an old Hovabator this past year (but am planning to build my own from a large cooler for 2015). I fill all the water troughs and add a small towel to wick water everywhere (and catch debris, the towel gets washed in the washer between uses). I also bought cheap plastic trays at the dollar store and I put the eggs in there to contain much of the mess. The bottoms are slippery, so I use rubberized shelf liner in the bottom of the containers (also soaked and washed between uses). Cleaning everything between hatches is important, the conditions for good hatching are also what makes for good bacteria growth.

I drop the temp a degree in the hatcher (aim for 98.5) and keep the humidity above 80% (I've had it hit 99 during a good hatch with all the wet chicks).

Keep records of what you do so you can repeat things that work and tweak things that don't. Modern incubators are very good, but experience in using them makes them even better, and there are variables we can't understand from a forum post that might reduce your outcomes until you figure out your own best style.