Homemade incubator hatchalong

[Redhead Rae]

(Better than the Chinese incubator with yellow lid, but I liked that one for its ease of use and how many it could hatch)

I have two of those Chinese yellow topped incubators in the 56 egg size. One barely works (I only got 1 out of 12 to hatch because it was all over the place) and the other works, but needs constant nursing and beeps annoyingly ALL the TIME for no reason. I use it as my lock down incubator because it is too hard to keep the humidity low for starting in the incubator and not have the thing beeping like crazy. It thinks 44% humidity is too low and I can't change its mind. So it works better at higher humidity.

So I've decided to gut both of them and give them a new life.

I just bought two Incukit Minis with the compatible turner motor to upgrade them. I plan on using the stryofoam packing that the incubators came in as insulation for them. If this works, I'll have two 56 egg incubators with auto-turners for about $215.

I'm so excited! I'm quickly reaching a place where my current starter incubator (a Brinsea Ovation 28 EX) isn't big enough. I may just start using it as my lock down incubator because I can see through the lid.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Did you see the incubator i made? Having a lot of temperature issues, the thermostat lets it drop down to 98.6 before it kicks in and then goes up high before it shuts off. I might have to get a different one. It will be a miracle if these guinea eggs hatch. I used older ones because i expected my first incubator build would have some kinks to work out.

 

[kittycat1356]

Well guys, I candled some of my eggs a few minutes ago, and all the brabanter eggs look infertle?
I candled 2 last night but just figured it was too early to see anything. I woke up and decided to candle a few of my own eggs to see what the deal was. And I see heartbeats in a few of my own eggs! But I candled most of the brabanter eggs and I didn’t see any signs of life, and a few of the air cells were in the wrong spot like on the small end of the egg and the side by the big end.

I really hope some end up being fertile!

 

[Hyroler]

Here is mine:
Currently on day 10 for my Muscovy's Eggs.
Before and after setup:
(Pictures were taken the day I put my eggs in the bator)
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Nice setup.I think you built excellent incubator .
.

 

[Nyla]

Thank you! I'm currently building a new one out of a side by side fridge and freezer. Freezer will be my hatcher and fridge will be my incubator!

Nice setup.I think you built excellent incubator .
.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I got my first Franken-bator made! I'm running a test on it now.

I had to do some modifications to get the motor to fit the mount on the original turner and I had to splice in some of the wire from the old turner so I had enough length to lift the lid. It looks like I may lose the space below the turner for eggs, but 55 eggs is better than no eggs.

 

[kittycat1356]

Had a power outage, had to drop my incubator off at a friends house, the eggs got awfully cold, 90-93° For hours. and colder when the power was out. They seem to be doing okay though now, I thought I lost one but it has movement in it so it’s good.

My goose decided to sit on eggs as well, she will probably smash them but I’ll let her do her thing, hopefully it works out.

 

[Redhead Rae]

I have 4 eggs hatching in my Franken-bator today. I started the eggs in my Brinsea and I moved them to the Franken-bator for hatching. Two have pipped. I am going to be setting 9 to 11 eggs (depending on how many my Dark Cornish lay today) in my second Fraken-bator and moving the 11 eggs I set in my Brinsea last week over there as well. The reason being, I just got 17 LF White Cornish eggs in the mail today and I want my most dependable incubator devoted to hatching them.

 

[kittycat1356]

Today was the main hatch day! I’ll probably have a few late ones since I added eggs a day later than the first.
I’m having a decent rate, one egg died a few days back, it looked dead, then alive again and then dead again. It also never had any visible veins just a moving mass inside. Weird. Not moving anymore though.

a few of my chicks hatched out and are in the brooder now, but after they all hatched and there were no more pips, I checked my brabanter egg to see how it was doing, I saw him in there pecking away at inner shell so I put it back and waited 6 hours for no pip to happen. By this point I was worried and decided to check and put an air hole and maybe coconut oil. But I was too late and it was dead already. Really sucks too, my 20$ egg died and I should have just assisted when I saw it pecking.

So there’s 2 losses so far, the chick looked malpositioned though too so maybe that was it.

 

[Colly1470]

Hi all! 9 days ago I put 6 shipped goose eggs into a homemade incubator (a 10 gallon tank with a straw nest, a bowl of water, a thermometer, a thermometer/hygrometer, a small fan, a ceramic heat emitter bulb in an adjustable dome, and a bunch of bubble wrap to keep heat in....it's been a lot steadier than I expected). Eggs 2 and 3 had to be tossed (to prevent smelly disasters). As of yesterday, Egg 1 isn't showing signs of developing or being bad (tomorrow I'll know for sure).

And Eggs 4, 5, and 6 are growing! I weighed them when they arrived and on day 7...they're doing good in that way. As you can see, Egg 5 had some air cell correcting to do....it's in the fat end now, instead of down on the side. Hopefully at least 1 makes it to hatching.