I made an incubator last week modeled after the award winning Gopher-Bator (thanks, GB!), and it works! I put 15 Welsh Harlequin duck eggs in it Thursday and candled a few of them today...just to see. And I saw embryos and lots of veins! They look just like they are supposed to look at this age! Yeah!!!!
Now I will tell you all I'm not very mechanically inclined. OK...scratch the "not very"...I'm not at ALL. So when I plugged in the fan and the light/water heater thermostat and they worked, I was literally squealing with joy. But then came the matter of getting the temp right. I worried and fussed with it, literally staying up all night! And did so again the night I put the eggs in. The temps never did get perfect, but fluctuates between 97°F and 106°F. I didn't have big water wiggler, just a tiny one that is about 2 inches, so it wasn't giving me a steady reading either. The little water wiggler temp bounces back and forth between 98.9°F - 99.9°F .... so I figure if the water wiggler were the regular size, it would read about 99.5°. And since the eggs look right on cue, I guess it's good enough.
Anyway, if all goes well, we are looking at a dozen or so little ducklings in just 24 days!
Oh, and my cooler came from someone's dumpster, with the lid literally torn off of it and tossed to the side and the corners of the lid all smashed in...but it was nothing a little duck tape (haha) couldn't fix.
Now I will tell you all I'm not very mechanically inclined. OK...scratch the "not very"...I'm not at ALL. So when I plugged in the fan and the light/water heater thermostat and they worked, I was literally squealing with joy. But then came the matter of getting the temp right. I worried and fussed with it, literally staying up all night! And did so again the night I put the eggs in. The temps never did get perfect, but fluctuates between 97°F and 106°F. I didn't have big water wiggler, just a tiny one that is about 2 inches, so it wasn't giving me a steady reading either. The little water wiggler temp bounces back and forth between 98.9°F - 99.9°F .... so I figure if the water wiggler were the regular size, it would read about 99.5°. And since the eggs look right on cue, I guess it's good enough.
Anyway, if all goes well, we are looking at a dozen or so little ducklings in just 24 days!
Oh, and my cooler came from someone's dumpster, with the lid literally torn off of it and tossed to the side and the corners of the lid all smashed in...but it was nothing a little duck tape (haha) couldn't fix.
