Homemade Incubator Help

[JulesFlock]

I am building a cooler incubator and I'm wondering if you know of any reason not to put the water, light, and fan under the floor of the bator? It'd be nice to get all that out of the way of the chicks and I can't think of a reason not to but I've never seen one like that. The light is always midway or at egg level.

Thank you in advance!!

 

[JulesFlock]

I'm thinking it would heat both the flooring and the air and that would be bad.

 

[Daedalus62]

Hi JulesFlock,

A good reason not to put the fan and light (the water tray not so bad) under the eggs, is because when chicks hatch it gets quite messy in there... Egg goo, tiny bits of eggshell, chick droppings, etc... Hard time cleaning all that mess... If possible keep things above the hatching area/floor, and cover the incubator floor with newspaper or something.

Cheers

 

[Dcat]

The light bulbs popping from any liquid mess would be my biggest worry, it really does get messy and chicks can poop. My light and fan are above then I cover the bottom with newspaper and a big peice of shelf liner to keep them from slipping around until their muscles can hold them up. Made clean-up so much easier.

 

[JulesFlock]

Thank you both so much for your advice. That makes perfect sense and seems so obvious. I appreciate it!

 

[Daedalus62]

You're welcome, JulesFlock

... Have a nice build.

Cheers

 

[frg34]

I was searching for someone that had done that too, but couldnt find much. Still, I am going to do just that for my styrofoam cooler build. I have already put my 100 watt heating element mounted in front of a pc fan. Already wired that to my stc-1000 temp controller. Going to put the fan/heater in the center and on the bottom of the long side and shoot it across to the short side. Will put some small cover on top to prevent droppings during hatch. Will put thermal mass and an ice cub tray also on the bottom. Ice cube tray seems ideal for altering the amount of surface area needed for moisture needs (will put a fill tube poking through to add water to ice cube tray). On top, I will have a single layer of eggs on a shelf liner conveyer belt with dowel rods.